Copernican Revolution

Motion
of Sun (yellow), Earth (blue),
and Mars (red) according
to heliocentrism (left) and
to geocentrism (right), before the
Copernican Revolution. Note
the retrograde motion of Mars on
the right. (To create a smooth
animation, Mars' period of
revolution is depicted as exactly 2 years instead of 1.88. The orbits are depicted as
circular in the heliocentric case.)
The Copernican Revolution was the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the
heavens, which described the cosmos as having Earth stationary at the center of the
universe, to the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System.
Beginning with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium
coelestium, contributions to the “revolution” continued until finally ending with Isaac
Newton’s work over a century later.

Heliocentrism
Before Copernicus
The "Copernican Revolution" is named for Nicolaus Copernicus,
whose Commentariolus, written before 1514, was the first explicit presentation of the
heliocentric model in Renaissance scholarship. The idea of heliocentrism is much older;
it can be traced to Aristarchus of Samos, a Hellenistic author writing in the 3rd century
BC, who may in turn have been drawing on even older concepts in Pythagoreanism.
Ancient heliocentrism was, however, eclipsed by the geocentric model presented
by Ptolemy and accepted in Aristotelianism.
European scholars were well aware of the problems with Ptolemaic astronomy
since the 13th century. The debate was precipitated by the reception by Averroes'
criticism of Ptolemy, and it was again revived by the recovery of Ptolemy's text and its
translation into Latin in the mid-15th century.[1] Otto E. Neugebauer in 1957 argued that
the debate in 15th-century Latin scholarship must also have been informed by the
criticism of Ptolemy produced after Averroes, by the Ilkhanid-era (13th to 14th centuries)
Persian school of astronomy associated with the Maragheh observatory (especially the
works of Al-Urdi, Al-Tusi and Ibn al-Shatir).[2] Arabic mathematicians unable to make
Ptolemaic astronomy connect to Aristotelian cosmology modified the Ptolemaic system,
and heavily criticized its tradition.[3] Medieval European astronomers inherited Arabic
attempts at mathematical realism in the Ptolemaic system that created a new line of
scientific motivation, which influenced the direction of Copernicus’s work.[3]
 The state of the question as received by Copernicus is summarized in
the Theoricae novae planetarum by Georg von Peuerbach, compiled from lecture notes
by Peuerbach's student Regiomontanus in 1454 but printed only in 1472. Peuerbach
attempts to give a new, mathematically more elegant presentation of Ptolemy's system,
but he does not arrive at heliocentrism. Regiomontanus himself was the teacher
of Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara, who was in turn the teacher of Copernicus.
There is a possibility that Regiomontanus already arrived at a theory of
heliocentrism before his death in 1476, as he paid particular attention to the heliocentric
theory of Aristarchusin a late work, and mentions the "motion of the Earth" in a letter.
Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric model

Copernicus studied at Bologna University during 1496–
1501, where he became the assistant of Domenico Maria
Novara da Ferrara. He is known to have studied
the Epitome in Almagestum Ptolemei by Peuerbach and
Regiomontanus (printed in Venice in 1496) and to have
performed observations of lunar motions on 9 March 1497.
Copernicus went on to develop an explicitly heliocentric
model of planetary motion, at first written in his short
work Commentariolus some time before 1514, circulated in
a limited number of copies among his acquaintances. He
continued to refine his system until publishing his larger
work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), which
contained detailed diagrams and tables.[5]
The Copernican model makes the claim of describing the physical reality of the
cosmos, something which the Ptolemaic model was no longer believed to be able to
provide. Copernicus removed Earth from the center of the universe, set the heavenly
bodies in rotation around the Sun, and introduced Earth's daily rotation on its axis. [5] While
Copernicus's work sparked the "Copernican Revolution", it did not mark its end. In fact,
Copernicus's own system had multiple shortcomings that would have to be amended by
later astronomers.

The Copernican Revolution

The 16th century finally saw what came to be a watershed in the development of
Cosmology. In 1543 Nicolas Copernicus published his treatise De Revolutionibus Orbium
Coelestium (The Revolution of Celestial Spheres) where a new view of the world is
presented: the heliocentric model.

It is hard to underestimate the importance of this work: it challenged the age long views
of the way the universe worked and the preponderance of the Earth and, by extension, of
human beings. The realization that we, our planet, and indeed our solar system (and even
our galaxy) are quite common in the heavens and reproduced by myriads of planetary
systems provided a sobering (though unsettling) view of the universe. All the
reassurances of the cosmology of the Middle Ages were gone, and a new view of the
world, less secure and comfortable, came into being. Despite these ``problems'' and the
many critics the model attracted, the system was soon accepted by the best minds of the
time such as Galileo

Copenicus' model, a rediscovery of the one proposed by Aristarchus centuries before

(see Sect. 2.4), explained the observed motions of the planets (eg. the peculiar motions
of Mars; see Fig. 2.13) more simply than Ptolemy's by assuming a central sun around
which all planets rotated, with the slower planets having orbits farther from the sun.
Superimposed on this motion, the planets rotate around their axes. Note that Copernicus
was not completely divorced from the old Aristotelian views: the planets are assumed to
move in circles around the sun (Fig. 3.3).

Figure 3.3: The page in Copernicus' book De Revolutionibus Orbium

Coelestium outlining the heliocentric model.

It must be noted that Copernicus not only put forth the

heliocentric idea, but also calculated various effects that
his model predicted (thus following the steps outlined in
Sect. 1.2.1). The presentation of the results was made to
follow Ptolemy's Almagest step by step, chapter by
chapter. Copernicus' results were quite as good as
Ptolemy's and his model was simpler; but its predictions
were not superior (since the planets do not actually move
in circles but follow another - though closely related - curve,
the ellipse); in order to achieve the same accuracy as
Ptolemy, Copernicus also used epicycles, but now in the
motion of the planets around the Sun. The traditional
criticisms to the heliocentric model he answered thusly,

 To the objection that a moving Earth would experience

an enormous centrifugal force which would tear it to
 pieces, Copernicus answered that the same would be true of, say, Mars in the
Ptolemaic system, and worse for Saturn since the velocity is much larger.
 To the question of how can one explain that things fall downwards without using
the Aristotelian idea that all things move towards the center, Copernicus stated
that that gravity is just the tendency of things to the place from which they have
been separated; hence a rock on Earth falls towards the Earth, but one near the
Moon would fall there. Thus he flatly contradicted one of the basic claims of
Aristotle regarding motion.
 To the objection that any object thrown upward would be ``left behind'' if the Earth
moves, and would never fall in the same place, Copernicus argued that this will
not occur as all objects in the Earth's vicinity participate in its motion and are being
carried by it.

Copernicus was aware that these ideas would inevitably create conflicts with the Church,
and they did. Though he informally discussed his ideas he waited until he was about to
die to publish his magnum opus, of which he only printed a few hundred copies.
Nonetheless this work was far from ignored and in fact was the first (and perhaps the
strongest) blow to the Medieval cosmology. His caution did not save him from pointed
criticisms, for example, Luther pointed out (from his Tabletalk)

There was mention of a certain new astrologer who wanted to prove that the Earth moves
and not the sky, the Sun, and the Moon. This would be as if somebody were riding on a
cart or in a ship and imagined that he was standing still while the Earth and the trees were

moving . So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that
others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who
wishes to turn the whole astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown
into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still

and not the Earth.

The Pope Paul III was not very critical, but his bishops and cardinals agreed with Luther
and the model was condemned by the Church.

The heliocentric model was eventually universally accepted by the scientific community,
but it spread quite slowly. There were several reasons for this, on the one hand there
certainly was a reticence to oppose the authority of the Church and of Aristotle, but there
was also the fact that the heliocentric model apparently contradicted the evidence of the
senses. Nonetheless the model became better known and was even improved. For
example, Copernicus' version had the fixed stars attached to an immovable sphere
surrounding the Sun, but its generalizations did and assumed them to be dispersed
throughout the universe (Fig. 3.4); Giordano Bruno even proposed that the universe is
infinite containing many worlds like ours where intelligent beings live.

In fact it was Bruno's advocacy of the Copernican system that produced one of the
strongest reactions by the Church: Bruno advocated not only the heliocentric model, but
denied that objects posses a natural motion, denied the existence of a center of the
universe, denying even the Sun of a privileged place in the cosmos. Bruno was executed
by the Inquisition in 1600.

Figure 3.4: The heliocentric model of Thomas Digges (1546-1595) who enlarged the
Copernican system by asserting that the stars are not fixed in a celestial orb, but
dispersed throughout the universe.

The slow progress of the heliocentric model was also apparent among part of the scientific
community of the time; in particular Tycho Brahe, the best astronomer of the late 16th
century, was opposed to it. He proposed instead a ``compromise'': the earth moves
around the sun, but the rest of the planets move around the Earth (Fig. 3.5). Brahe's
argument against the Copernican system was roughly the following: if the Earth moves in
circles around the Sun, nearby stars will appear in different positions at different times of
the year. Since the stars are fixed they must be very far away but then they should be
enormous and this is ``unreasonable'' (of course they only need to be enormously bright!)

Figure 3.5: Brahe's model of the universe: a central Earth around which the sun moves
surrounded by the other planets [From the Compendio di un trattato del Padre
Christoforo Borro Giesuita della nuova costitution del mondo secondo Tichone Brahe e
gli altri astologi moderni (Compendium of a treatise of Father Christoforo Borri, S.J. on
the new model of the universe according to Tycho Brahe and the other modern
astronomers) by Pietro della Valle, Risalah- i Padri Khristafarus Burris Isavi dar tufiq-i
jadid dunya.
The Copernican Revolution

The story of Copernican Revolution is the classic example of a major shift in

worldview. So, before exploring what is happening in the present day and where it may
be leading us, let us first go back and briefly recap the salient features of this earlier
revolution. The parallels between what happened then and what may be about to happen
now will begin a journey that will take us far beyond the current worldview to a startling
new vision of reality that has far-reaching repercussions for both science and religion. We
may be standing on the threshold of changes even more fundamental and far-reaching
than those initiated by Copernicus.

The Geocentric Universe

Five hundred years ago, as the Middle Ages began to give way to the
Renaissance, the reality within which most people lived and conducted their affairs was
one in which human beings played a pre-eminent role; everything revolved around man,
both physically and in God's eyes. The Old Testament story of Genesis was taken as
historical fact. God had created the Earth and the Heavens around. Man (and to a lesser
extent woman) was the focus of God's attention.

The model of the cosmos was still that formulated by the Greek philosopher
Ptolemy around 140 AD. The sun, moon, planets and stars all revolved around the earth
in circular orbits. Back then, everyone “knew” that the earth stood still at the center of the
universe. But there were problems with this model. Although the stars move smoothly
through the heavens along fixed circular orbits, the planets do not. They wander among
the other stars (which is where the term “planet” came from; it means “wanderer” in
Greek). Their speed varies, their orbits wobble, and they occasionally reverse their
direction of travel -- what is known as "retrograde" motion. At that time it was believed
that planetary motion must be based on circles. Plato had argued that heavenly bodies
were governed by different laws than those that governed the motion of objects on earth.
Heavenly bodies being perfect, displayed perfect motion, and the perfect motion,
according to Plato, was circular motion. So how could the planets’ wandering movements
be explained in terms of circles?

The best solution astronomers could come up with was to propose a system of
epicycles. An epicycle is the path traced out by a point on circle that is itself rolling around
another circle. Imagine a wheel rolling along the ground. A point on the rim of the wheel
is almost still relative to the ground when it is at the bottom of the wheel, but moving twice
the speed of the wheel when it has reached the top. And a point beyond the rim of the
wheel would actually be moving backwards when it is at the bottom. So if the planets
moved around small circles that themselves rolled along the larger circular orbits then this
could explain some of the strange planetary motions.

As more accurate data was collected, it became apparent that simple epicycles
could not account for all the irregularities in the planetary motions. So medieval
astronomers proposed more complex epicycles -- circles moving along circles moving
along circles. And when these failed, added various other oscillations, until the system
became very complex indeed.

The Copernican Revolution

This view of the universe, cumbersome as it was, survived, virtually unchallenged,

for thirteen hundred years, until the early sixteenth century when the Polish astronomer,
Nicolaus Copernicus, put forward a radically different model. The reason the stars
appeared to orbit the earth was, he suggested, because the earth itself was moving,
rotating on its own axis once every twenty-four hours. The apparent movement of the
heavens was an illusion, caused by the movement of the observer.

Suggesting that the earth moved was heresy enough. But Copernicus went on to
argue that the wandering motion of the planets could be explained if they were orbiting
the sun rather than the earth. This led to the theory that the earth was itself just another
planet also in orbit around the sun. (This was not a totally new theory. A little know Greek
philosopher, Aristarchus, had advanced the idea that the earth and the other planets
moved around the sun in 270 BC. If his views, rather than those of Plato and Ptolemy,
had held sway, history might have taken a very different course.)

Being a distinguished churchman, Copernicus knew the views of the Vatican on

the earth's all important position at the center of the universe, and how tenaciously it held
to that view. In proposing his theory, he was not just challenging orthodox science; he
was challenging the established religious view of reality -- which in those days held even
greater sway than the scientific view. So, fearing the wrath of the church, he kept his ideas
to himself for thirty years. Only as he was nearing death, and feeling that he did not want
to take this important knowledge with him to the grave, did he finally decide to publish his
little book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. When it was eventually published,
in 1543, (Copernicus first saw a copy on the day he died) it was immediately placed on
the papal index of forbidden books.

So it remained, ignored and forgotten, for nearly eighty years, until the Italian
scientist Galileo Galilei took up an interest in planetary motions. Utilizing the newly
invented telescope, he found convincing evidence in favor of the Copernican model. He
saw that Venus had phases, just like the moon, when only half, or just a crescent, of it
would be lit -- which is what would happen if Venus orbited the sun. He also found that
Jupiter had its own moons in orbit around it, dispelling the idea that everything went
around the earth.

After publishing his findings, Galileo was contacted by Pope Paul V, who
demanded he retract his heretical ideas. Fearing for his life, he did so. But a few years
later, unhappy that so important a truth should remain suppressed, he published a
brilliantly composed dialogue in which he defended and supported the Copernican theory.
Again, under threat of torture, he was forced to "abjure, curse, and detest" the absurd
view that the earth moves around the sun. He was then put under house-arrest so that
he could be watched and prevented from causing any further trouble -- and remained
there till his death.

At the same time as Galileo was making his critical observations of the planets, a
German mathematician, Johannes Kepler, was putting into place another key piece of the
puzzle. Copernicus had argued that the sun, not the earth, lay at the center of things, but
he still adhered to the Platonic ideal of circular motion, and although his model explained
planetary movements much better than the old geocentric model, there were still
unexplained irregularities, which Copernicus tried to account for with various epicycles.
Kepler had the good fortune to be a student of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who
had accumulated volumes of accurate astronomical observations. Brahe set Kepler to
work on the motion of Mars, the planet with the most troublesome orbit. Kepler’s
breakthrough was the discovery that the movements of Mars, and all the other planets,
could be accounted for, without any need for epicycles, if their orbits were ellipses rather
than circles. But as to why the orbits should be ellipses rather than circles, he had no
idea.

The final piece of the puzzle was put in place some 50 years later by the English
mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton. He realized that heavenly bodies were governed by
exactly the same laws as earthly objects; the force that causes an apple to fall is the same
force that holds the moon in its orbit around the earth. Working out the resulting equations
of motion he established that any orbiting body would indeed move in an ellipse -- just as
Kepler had discovered.

The revolution was now complete. The journey had been started by Copernicus,
but putting it all together had involved other equally significant breakthroughs in thinking,
and had taken nearly 150 years to complete. (Although it was not until 1992 that the
Vatican finally admitted Galileo been right.)