ASTR 101 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Natural Philosophy, Empyrean, Deferent And Epicycle
Document Summary
Copernicus (1500"s) reinvented the heliocentric theory and challenged church doctrine. Copernicus (c. 1520) was not the first astronomer to challenge the geocentric model of ptolemy, but he was the first to successfully formulate a heliocentric model and publish his model. He was able to overcome centuries of resistance to the heliocentric model for a series of political and scientific reasons. Politically, the authority of the church was weakening in. Northern europe in the 15th century allowing more diversity in scientific thinking (although the new. Protestant faiths were also not quick to embrace the heliocentric model). Scientifically, a better understanding of motion (particularly inertia) was undermining the whole concept of an unmoving earth. A rotating earth is a much simpler explanation for the durnal motion of stars, an earth that rotates is only one step away from an earth that revolves around the sun. The heliocentric model had a greater impact than simply an improvement to solve retrograde motion.
