Scribd
Upload
11 views

Galaxyuniverseofclass 11

1) Aristotle's geocentric model of the universe was the dominant system for over 1000 years, with Earth at the center and celestial bodies moving in perfect circles. 2) Aristotle's system was internally logical but lacked mechanisms to test or modify its principles based on new evidence. 3) After the fall of Rome, Aristotle's system became enmeshed with religious dogma in medieval Europe and the notion of an Earth-centered universe became difficult to challenge. 4) Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model in 1543 with the Sun at the center, qualitatively explaining planetary motion better than previous models, but his calculations were not yet quantitatively more accurate.

Uploaded by

Prerak Shrestha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
11 views

Galaxyuniverseofclass 11

1) Aristotle's geocentric model of the universe was the dominant system for over 1000 years, with Earth at the center and celestial bodies moving in perfect circles. 2) Aristotle's system was internally logical but lacked mechanisms to test or modify its principles based on new evidence. 3) After the fall of Rome, Aristotle's system became enmeshed with religious dogma in medieval Europe and the notion of an Earth-centered universe became difficult to challenge. 4) Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model in 1543 with the Sun at the center, qualitatively explaining planetary motion better than previous models, but his calculations were not yet quantitatively more accurate.

Uploaded by

Prerak Shrestha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

The systematic application of pure reason to the explanation of natural phenomena

reached its extreme development with Aristotle (384–322 BCE), whose great system of
the world later came to be regarded as the synthesis of all worthwhile knowledge.
Aristotle argued that humans could not inhabit a moving and rotating Earth without
violating common sense perceptions. Moreover, in his theory of impetus, all
terrestrial motion, presumably including that of Earth itself, would grind to a
halt without the continued application of force. He took for granted the action of
friction because he would not allow the seminal idealization of a body moving
through a void (“nature abhors a vacuum”). Thus, Aristotle was misled into equating
force with velocity rather than, as Sir Isaac Newton was to show much later, with
(mass times) acceleration. Celestial objects were exempt from dynamical decay
because they moved in a higher stratum whereby a perfect sphere was the natural
shape of heavenly bodies and uniform rotation in circles was the natural state of
their motion. Indeed, primary motion was derived from the outermost sphere, the
seat of the unchangeable stars and of divine power. No further explanation was
needed beyond the aesthetic one. In this scheme, the imperfect motion of comets had
to be postulated as meteorological phenomena that took place within the imperfect
atmosphere of Earth.

The great merit of Aristotle’s system was its internal logic, a grand attempt to
unify all branches of human knowledge within the scope of a single self-consistent
and comprehensive theory. Its great weakness was that its rigid arguments rested
almost entirely on aesthetic grounds; it lacked a mechanism by which empirical
knowledge gained from experimentation or observation could be used to test, modify,
or reject the fundamental principles underlying the theory. Aristotle’s system had
the underlying philosophical drive of modern science without its flexible procedure
of self-correction that allows the truth to be approached in a series of successive
approximations.

With the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, much of what was known to the Greeks
was lost or forgotten—at least to Western civilizations. (Hindu astronomers still
taught that Earth was a sphere and that it rotated once daily.) The Aristotelian
system, however, resonated with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church during
the Middle Ages, especially in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th
century, and later, during the period of the Counter-Reformation in the 16th and
early 17th century, it ascended to the status of religious dogma. Thus did the
notion of an Earth-centred universe become gradually enmeshed in the politics of
religion. Also welcome in an age that insisted on a literal interpretation of the
Scriptures was Aristotle’s view that the living species of Earth were fixed for all
time. What was not accepted was Aristotle’s argument on logical grounds that the
world was eternal, extending infinitely into the past and the future even though it
had finite spatial extent. For the church, there was definitely a creation event,
and infinity was reserved for God, not space or time.

The Copernican revolution


See how Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric model replaced Aristotle's and Ptolemy's
geocentric models
See how Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric model replaced Aristotle's and Ptolemy's
geocentric models
Copernicus's theory of the solar system.See all videos for this article
The Renaissance brought a fresh spirit of inquiry to the arts and sciences.
Explorers and travelers brought home the vestiges of classical knowledge that had
been preserved in the Muslim world and the East, and in the 15th century
Aristarchus’ heliocentric hypothesis again came to be debated in certain educated
circles. The boldest step was taken by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus,
who hesitated for so long in publication that he did not see a printed copy of his
own work until he lay on his deathbed in 1543. Copernicus recognized more
profoundly than anyone else the advantages of a Sun-centred planetary system. By
adopting the view that Earth circled the Sun, he could qualitatively explain the
to-and-fro wanderings of the planets much more simply than Ptolemy. For example, at
certain times in the motions of Earth and Mars about the Sun, Earth would catch up
with Mars’s projected motion, and then that planet would appear to go backward
through the zodiac. Unfortunately in his Sun-centred system, Copernicus continued
to adhere to the established tradition of using uniform circular motion, and if he
adopted only one large circle for the orbit of each planet, his calculated
planetary positions would in fact be quantitatively poorer in comparison with the
observed positions of the planets than tables based on the Ptolemaic system. This
defect could be partially corrected by providing additional smaller circles, but
then much of the beauty and simplicity of Copernicus’ original system would be
lost. Moreover, though the Sun was now removed from the list of planets and Earth
added, the Moon still needed t

You might also like