ASTR 001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Copernican Revolution, Moe Williams, Heliocentrism
15 Jul 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Curvature of the earth"s shadow on the moon only a spherical body could make that circular shadow. Earth size from position of sun in the sky. Eratosthenes syene to alexandria distance ~5000 stadia (1 greek stadia = 1/6 km), angle=7 degrees. Simple geometry yields radius and thus circumference of earth = 42,000km. Crown jewel of greek astronomy = geocentric model. Life work described in on the revolutions of the celestial. Spheres (1543 legend that he saw the rst printed version of his book while on his deathbed), preface: purely mathematical, not reality . Used model to determine the layout of solar system. Relative distances to the sun able to determine quantitatively that. Jupiter is about 5x further away from sun than earth. Many perfect circles needed (like plato, heavens are perfect, circular or spherical) Not very accurate not exact measurements. Very arrogant b/c born into a wealthy family his nose was cut off by a student.
