|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Changes in World View
|
|
| |
by Richard Rosen
Drexel University
Philadeliphia, Pennsylvania
|
|
| | Introduction: The Movement of the Stars and Planets
Popular understanding of the relationship between the Earth and the heavenly bodies has frequently changed over the course of human history. Such changes in world view have reflected changes in the information, or data, available to those who study the universe. Yet this data has also always been interpreted according to the norms and needs of particular cultures.
Embed Box
Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolemy
The roots of our modern views of the universe were developed by ancient Greek philosophers. Some time around 370 B.C.E., Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) challenged his mathematics students to provide a model of the universe that followed three rules.
Embed Box
The Information Explosion and St. Thomas Aquinas
After the fall of Rome, the methods and discoveries of Greek science were kept alive by Muslim scholars. The major Greek scientific works were carried in translation to all parts of the Muslim world, from India in the East to Spain in the West. Through contacts with Muslim Spain, twelfth-century Western Christians found countless Greek works previously unknown to them.
Embed Box
The Julian Calendar and Nicholas Copernicus
During the fifteenth century, scholars in the Roman Catholic Church began to notice major problems with the calendar. By 1450, the calendar was off by about 11 days. December 25 (Christmas Day) was actually December 14; other religious holidays that were calendar-based were also being celebrated 11 days too soon.
Embed Box
Tycho Brahe and Johann Kepler
Through the work of two scholars, Earth lost its traditional role as the center of most cosmological understandings. Tycho Brahe advanced an Earth-centered system in which the five known planets rotated about the sun, which in turn revolved around the Earth. Johann Kepler proved the essential truth of the Tychonic system, but followed his own path in doing so.
Embed Box
The Telescope and Galileo
In the hands of Galileo a remarkable device, the telescope, became a "weapon of destruction" of the old system of Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Embed Box
Sir Isaac Newton, "The Great Synthesizer"
Newton has been called "The Great Synthesizer" for bringing together the ideas
of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and others into a coherent whole. By
adding the unique concept of gravity, Newton was able to provide the glue necessary for an
understanding of how we can function on an Earth that moves at such great rates of speed.
Embed Box
Suggested Activities
Embed Box
|
|
|
|
|
|
Course Home Pages