The History and Factors Leading to Copernican Revolution

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German astronomer who believed in the heliocentric theory. Kepler is a clear example of the narrow line that separated science and religion. Nonetheless, his ideas would show that things could be solved through reason alone. He believed that the harmony of the human soul could be found through numerical relationships that existed between planets. He found that the planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn all revolved at different times. For example, the earth revolved around the sun in a year while Saturn revolved around the sun in fifty years. From this, Kepler found a mathematical ratio, nine to the two-thirds power, to explain this phenomenon. This was revolutionary to humanity’s place in the universe. People were shocked that the universe could be explained by math alone rather than religion. This went strongly

Among these people were Copernicus who believed the sun was at the center of the world and the earth, stars and planets revolved around it. Danish astronomer Brahe helped contribute to this idea by contributing a large mass of data about the universe that he was able to discover. His student Kepler kept his ideas going, as he formulated many laws of planetary motion. He said the orbits around the sun were elliptical, planets don’t move in a uniform speed and the time a planet completes its orbit is related to its distance from the sun. Meanwhile, Florentine Galileo decided to use experiments to find out what happened and not what should happen, and discovered that a uniform force makes a uniform acceleration as well as inertia laws, that an object will be in motion forever unless stopped by another force.

the heliocentric solar system. Johannes Kepler further modified the heliocentric system, by mathematically showing that the planets’ orbits are elliptical. With his invention of the telescope, Galileo made new observations about the solar system and found mathematical laws that described the movement of the planets. Later, Isaac Newton established a universal law of gravity. With the new scientific discoveries, the gap between religion and science increased. Science revolutionized the human though and its understanding of the universe.

During the time of Galileo, the church was very strict with physicists who believed in the Copernican model. This is exactly the position that Galileo found himself in. In 1600 Galileo began making his own telescope. He became the first person to point one at the night sky. What staggered him the most by doing this was the sheer volume of stars that were not visible with the naked eye. Galileo used his telescope to make many discoveries; one of these is the discovery of Jupiter’s four moons. He even plotted and tracked there rotations around Jupiter. The main thing however, was that Jupiter even had moons, this was proof that the geocentric model was incorrect and that this discovery was in favour of the Copernican model.

Copernicus began to question Ptolemy at a very young age. Copernicus didn’t believe Ptolemy’s view of the universe and that it was geocentric. Copernicus found mathematical errors to help him prove that Earth was not the center of the universe. After some research Copernicus realized that the universe was

Galileo Galilei was also a supporter of the Copernican Theory. Galileo believed the earth, and other planets, rotated on its axis around the unmoving sun. He used his new invention of the telescope to prove Copernicus’ theory. With the telescope, Galileo found sunspots on the earth’s moon, which gave proof to him that the heavens were not perfect and changeless but were more like the changeable earth. iv He also discovered Jupiter and the four moons that revolved around it. He only discovered one moon revolving around the earth. Galileo therefore stated if Jupiter were to revolve around the earth, then the earth would have to have at least four moons, and it doesn’t. v The Church objected Galileo’s theory because the Bible said the sun moved through the sky. Being totally rejected by the church, Galileo was forced to take back what he had written and was also prevented from any further teachings of his theory. Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for his ideas. The Church succeeded in silencing Galileo but couldn’t stop the advancements in science.

Johannes Kepler was a mathematician as well as a student and colleague of Tycho Brahe. Kepler went to work alongside Brahe in 1600 in Prague. Kepler was assigned the task of investigating the orbit of Mars. Due to his thorough understanding of the Copernican concept of planetary motion, Kepler was able to prove that Mars had a circular orbit around the sun. Upon Brahe’s death, Kepler assumed the position of Imperial Mathematician in 1604.

In 1543 Nicholas Copernicus, a Polish Canon, published “On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs”. The popular view is that Copernicus discovered that the earth revolves

It was not until Sir Isaac Newton inspected the Third Law that it was revealed that it was really a music of the spheres. Its findings were a result of, and clear indication for, the inverse square law of universal gravitation. Thus, as Neoplatonists had always maintained, there is truly an astronomical music for the intellect, and of all those who had tried to hear it before, no one had ever heard it as sweetly as Kepler. Kepler’s three famous laws of planetary motion still accurately describe the speeds and the movements of the planets, and are also the foundation of Newton’s laws of gravitation.

When Kepler first began his work on the orbit of Mars he was under the assumption, as many scientists were, that the planetary orbits were circular, and that the Sun was at the center of the orbits. This type of system is called a heliocentric system. Also at this time only six planets were known. When Kepler obtained Brahe's data he discovered that the orbits were not perfect circles, but instead were ellipses that were only slightly flattened. The reason nobody else realized this was because the orbits were so slightly elliptical that extensive investigation and data would be needed to show this. It also turned out that the reason the orbit of Mars was very difficult to understand was because its orbit was more eccentric than the other planets that Kepler and Brahe had data about. To understand a lot of Kepler's work you must first

The First Law of Planetary Motion, which is The Law of Ellipses, states that The path of the planets around the sun is elliptical in shape, with the center of the sun being located at one focus. It took five years of measuring the motion of Mars across the sky for

family in Poland gave birth to a son. They named him Nicholas Copernicus. Because of the family’s wealth, Copernicus went to the best schools and four different colleges; three in Italy and one in his home country of Poland. He studied math, philosophy, literature, medicine, law, and his favorite subject, astronomy. Although he had training in all these areas, his primary occupation was private physician for the bishop. Even so, Copernicus had a profound effect on the world and is considered to be the founder of modern science. He wrote a book with many evidences disputing Aristotle’s teaching that every piece of matter orbited the earth. The most popular ideas that Copernicus contributed to are the theories of geocentricity and heliocentricity.

In the early 1600’s, Johannes Kepler proposed three laws of planetary motion. Kepler was able to summarize the carefully collected data of his mentor, Tycho Brahe, with three statements that described the motion of planets in the sun-centered solar system.

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer and mathematician who lived between 1671-1630. Kepler was a Copernican and initially believed that planets should follow perfectly circular orbits (“Johan Kepler” 1). During this time period, Ptolemy’s geocentric theory of the solar system was accepted. Ptolemy’s theory stated that Earth is at the center of the universe and stationary; closest to Earth is the Moon, and beyond it, expanding towards the outside, are Mercury, Venus, and the Sun in a straight line, followed by Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the “fixed stars”. The Ptolemaic system explained the numerous observed motions of the planets as having small spherical orbits called epicycles (“Astronomy” 2). Kepler is best known for introducing three

After Tycho’s death, his assistant, young mathematician Johannes Kepler used Tycho’s observations and came up with his First Law that orbits of the planets are elliptical instead of round like Copernicus believed. With his Second Law, Kepler stated that the speed of the planets depends on their distance from the sun which helped English astronomer and physicist Isaac Newton, to come up with his Law of Universal Gravitation.