ASTR 101 Chapter 2, 3: Chapter 2 (2.4), Chapter 3
Document Summary
Nicolaus copernicus (a polish cleric) displaced the geocentric model with the heliocentric model. He published his ideas in his book de revolutionibus orbium coelestium (on the. He made assumptions of the time, such as motions of all heavenly bodies being made of combinations of uniform circular motions. He did not assume earth to be the center of the universe. His ideas took more than a century to become accepted. An objection to heliocentrism was that we would be aware of the motion of the. However, a moving person is not necessarily aware of the motion. Copernicus argued the apparent motion of the sun around the earth could also be represented by motion of the earth around the sun. He reasoned that the apparent rotation of the celestial sphere could be explained by assuming that earth rotates while the celestial sphere is stationary. Another objection was that earth"s rotation about an axis would cause it to fly into pieces.
