ASTRO-110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Copernican Revolution, Orbital Period, Kinematics
Document Summary
Kepler succeeds in accurately predicting the motion of the planets, but many still did not accept a sun-centered model: still a very religious community with preconceived notions. By the mid 1600s, kepler"s sun centered model gained acceptance. Finally knew how the planets moved through heavens kinematics (describes/studies motion) But still didn"t know why the planets move the way they do. All reverse their paths on occasion (backwards = east to west = retrograde motion) Some never venture far from the sun. Earth-centered models of the universe geocentric. Shown with putting your finger out in front of you to cover something shows the apparent change in position for objects with distance and depth) Most educated people believed that all motion was composed of circles. Sun-centered models weren"t better than earth centered (especially when there were epicycles involved) Most astronomers were happy within a few degrees of accuracy. An ideal that is rarely employed perfectly, but triumphs in the end.
