Nicolaus Copernicus Accomplishments

Ptolemy, a Roman astronomer came up with the theory that the universe revolved around Earth and all the creatures inhabiting it (Doc. C). This theory, The Geocentric Universe of Ptolemy, was adjusted by most of the people during The Middle Ages. However, much later on, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, disagreed with Ptolemy’s theory. With his use of math and reason, he came up with a new theory called The Heliocentric Universe of Copernicus (Doc. C). He said that the universe & Earth itself revolves around the sun. The Church denied this theory because they did not want to be proven wrong. If the Church was wrong about this part of the universe, this would then cause man to wonder what else they could be wrong about, or even lied to them about. This new theory taught men to think for themselves and not to rely on the Church for

In concordance with Christian doctrines, this system implies that heaven and the throne of God lie beyond the tenth sphere. On the other hand, during the first half of the 16th century, Polish cleric Copernicus developed an astronomical model which positions the motionless Sun at the center of the universe, with the Earth, the moon, and six other planets revolving at a constant speed around it. He argues that all stars were at rest and that their nightly movements are simply indications of the earth’s rotation. However, members of the Church, especially Protestants, who interpreted the Bible literally, refused to grant Copernicus credit for his theory. Nevertheless, once released among the population, the Copernican theory raised support from various scholars, a few of whom, such as Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo, went on to dedicate their career to solidify its legitimacy. With their use of mathematical reasoning, instead of antic philosophy, the Copernican theory finally became justified among the population. Pertaining to its influence among laypeople, the Copernican theory raised various questions against the

The statement acts to justify his finding with the church and connect them to God. Copernicus realized that the church would be quick to judge him, and possibly this is why he didn’t publish his theories until late in his life. His discoveries were not so much as important as were his methods of observation and application of mathematics to explain the world. His methods of discovery helped model the direction of science over the next hundred years.

His more relaxed viewpoint on the interpretations of the Bible and scripture allowed him to accept the Copernican theory. He even justified his stance through principals. The first principle was called biblical limitation. “I should judge that the authority of the Bible was designed to persuade men of these articles and propositions which, by science, or by any other means than through the very mouth of the Holy Spirit.” This principle overall explained that the bible could only be understood and interpreted correctly by the Holy Mother Mary. This gave a justification against claims from previous scholars such as St. Aquinas and St. Augustine. These two scholars took ideas for the overall argument from interpretations of the Bible made from either themselves or those before them. Therefore, Galileo believed that the interpretations were false. This allowed for science to not come in conflict with Catholicism as no one truly understood it. Another principle was the priority of physical demonstration. This principle stressed more on the empirical evidence before scriptural evidence. For this principle, Galileo focused primarily on nature and this allowed him to protect the concept of the Copernican theory from the bible. Since he used empirical evidence on nature, it allowed him to determine that the sun was at the center of the universe. Thus, observation, a major part of scientific

While the Roman Catholic Church believed that the earth was the center of the universe, Nicolaus Copernicus’s discovered that the Earth actually was one of the planets hat revolved around the sun. “For, in the first place, they are so uncertain about the motion of the sun and moon that they cannot establish and observe a constant length even for the tropical year. (Document 1)” The church belief did not make sense because it was wrong. They were going off wrong information that they could not establish a constant year, which confuses people. Nicolaus said that the earth moved around the sun, which made more sense and

During the time of Galileo, the church was very strict with physicists who believed in the Copernican model. This is exactly the position that Galileo found himself in. In 1600 Galileo began making his own telescope. He became the first person to point one at the night sky. What staggered him the most by doing this was the sheer volume of stars that were not visible with the naked eye. Galileo used his telescope to make many discoveries; one of these is the discovery of Jupiter’s four moons. He even plotted and tracked there rotations around Jupiter. The main thing however, was that Jupiter even had moons, this was proof that the geocentric model was incorrect and that this discovery was in favour of the Copernican model.

Copernicus and Galileo were two men who contributed to new beliefs and theories about the earth, and disagreed with beliefs that were over 2000 years old. Both questioned the view of the earth being geocentric. However, in this time the Roman Catholic Church was ruling and did not agree with these new theories, most likely due to . Because of this Galileo and Copernicus has to stay true to their beliefs and stick it out till their minds were changed. Individuals change their minds because of new evidence provided causing a better outlook on things, in this case Galileo's and Copernicus' findings of the world eventually changed the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.

Leung 1 Kelly Leung Professors Furstein and Cole Science Con. 9 Oct. 2014 The Catholic Church’s Authority vs. Galileo’s Correctness In his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” and Ballarmine, Galileo’s disagreement about the relationship between Copernicanism and Scripture was rooted in Galileo’s views of the separation between theology and astronomy.

During the 1700s, Harrison worked on building a clock that would help a sailor find his longitude at sea. He ended up with five clocks, the H-1, H-2, H-3, H-4 and H-5. When Harrison presented them to the Longitudinal Council, many were impressed with his invention. However, the astronomers on the council were not impressed; they believed the lunar distance method. During this time, the lunar distance method was the most subscribed method because it was thought to be most accurate and was less time-consuming compared to other methods. Similar to this, in the 1500s, when Copernicus discovered that the earth was not the center of the universe, no one would believe him; the Catholic Church had immediately rejected his idea. At the time, the church had an immense amount of power because the pope was international, there was only one pope for the whole world. This meant that when the pope rejected an idea, many countries would too. Eventually, for both men, they would find people that believed in their work. John Harrison never found anyone during his lifetime, but his son William Harrison continued his legacy. Eventually, William would find sympathy with King George III; he promised to have the Harrisons receive everything that they deserved. Similarly, Nicolaus Copernicus’s ideas weren’t fully appreciated until after he died. Several hundred years later, with the knowledge from Galileo Galilei

The Scientific Revolution not only led to countless inventions that changed the way of life, but changed people’s perspectives on many subjects such as the natural world. Copernicus changed the traditional view of the universe from an earth centered theory to a sun centered theory based on data collected from his predecessors in the field of astronomy. The key to proving this new view of the universe was the collaboration of other scientists, such as Galileo, and the usage of new astronomical instruments, particularly the telescope. The telescope allowed systematic observations of the universe, which ultimately supported the heliocentric view of the universe. This new view questioned everything that was fundamental to the Christian faith, which infuriated the Catholic Church (Spielvogel 475-480, 493).

Over two centuries ago the Catholic Church tried Galileo, because he published his book in 1632 that supported the heliocentric ideas that originated from Copernicus. The church claimed that the heliocentric theory went against scripture. During this time the Catholic Church believed in the idea that the Earth was at the center of the universe. This was called the geocentric theory, which had been around for nearly 1500 years. Galileo was tried less than a year later in 1633. The trial was private, because the church feared the community would support him, because he was one of the most achieved astronomers of their time. The church’s committee unanimously voted that his book, the Two Chief World Systems violated his

During the Enlightenment it was extremely difficult for faith and science to get along with each other, this occurred because the new discoveries were very different to what people of faith believed. People of faith believed that god had created everything and that everything that occurred was because that was what god had created it for. The scientific community was coming up with scientific and mathematical laws that described what was occurring in the universe. There were many scientific ideas that the Catholic Church could not agree with and thought them to be completely against faith. One of those was Copernicus work On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres. This book was considered so much against faith that it was placed on the Index

What if things aren’t really what we thought they were? In text 4, Copernicus’s Heliocentric View it says, “Copernicus waited over 20 years before he published his ideas on the heliocentric Universe. He was afraid of creating controversy. Finally, Copernicus agreed to have the book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, published in 1543, the year he died.”Copernicus was afraid of revealing his new ideas to the public because he was afraid of the controversy they would cause. It’s quite difficult to try and tell the world that things don’t work the way they initially thought they did. Copernicus proved that we did not exist in the center of the universe, unlike anything that our ancestors had ever heard of or wanted to think about at that

In his letter written in 1597 to Johannes Kepler, he states, “I accepted the view of Copernicus many years ago. And from this standpoint I have discovered many natural phenomena, which cannot be explained on the basis of the more commonly accepted hypothesis [that the Earth is the center of the Universe]”(9). In other words, Galileo also accepted the idea of the heliocentric view of the universe and that it is a better model of the universe that can explain phenomenon that could not necessarily be explained with the geocentric view. With his invention of a more powerful telescope, observation of a supernova, and discovery of the four moons of Jupiter, Galileo further supported and extended Copernicus’ theory of the heliocentric view of the

The Catholic Church played an important role at the time when all the works in which the movement of the earth was admitted, Catholics were forbidden to teach, and even read, the Copernican theories. The “Copernican Theory” modeled some problems of enormous importance for Christian’s obviously theological nature. Leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin told us that Scripture brandished against Nicolaus Copernicus and provoked repression against its followers, but generally abandon the fight Protestantism once the “Theories of Copernicus” were confirmed with indisputable evidence. In this paper, I will first evaluate the history about how “Copernican Theory” and its model of the earth came into existence. I will also analyze the “Copernican Theory” in light of Churches idea of the earth being flat. I will ultimately argue that Nicolaus Copernicus played an important role in the history of Philosophy of Science.