Nicolaus Copernicus’s major contribution for the advancement of astronomy was his heliocentric model. Inspired by an ancient Greek astronomer named Aristarchus’ idea of Sun-centered system, Copernicus developed his own heliocentric model updated with mathematical details of the system.
Fig.1 A Bust of Aristarchus
Sadly, while Copernicus’s fresh idea of heliocenterism spread widely, it failed to persuade many people to believe in it because it was not very accurate. Because of Copernicus’s strong belief that all heavenly motion must be in perfect circular movements, his model was bound to be inaccurate.
Fig.2 Nicolaus Copernicus's Heliocentric Model. Notice how the orbits are thought to be in perfect circular motion.
However, Copernicus’s discovery still is very significant to the development of astronomy. It provided an important stepping-stone for the astronomers that came after Copernicus. Even though the model proved to be inaccurate, it provided the world with a different perspective and possibility of Sun-centered universe. If he had not published his work because of his fear of it not being well-received, no one knows when the concept of heliocentric model would have reappeared and ultimately have delayed the advancement of astronomy by how many years.
Fig. 3 Nicolaus Copernicus
According to Gauch, science claims to have a rational method that provides humans with objective truth about physical reality. Logical method that provides cold hard truth about reality.
According to this definition of science, Copernicus’s contribution for the advancement of astronomy can be considered to be somewhat scientific. Copernicus used rational method to discover his heliocentric model: he started off from Aristarchus’ idea and developed his own by adding more accurate mathematical and theoretical updates of his own time. And Copernicus’s intention was to provide humans with truth about, what he was confident was the physical reality. To him, it was the truth and reality. The objectivity of his truth, on the other hand, is questionable. He could not detach himself from his personal belief that all heavenly motion must occur in perfect circles. And objectivity has no room for personal beliefs. But, that belief, which Copernicus held onto so tightly, could have been a general norm of his days. To him and his contemporary world, such belief could have been the objective truth. Therefore, the objectivity of Copernicus’s truth opens up a room for discussion.
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Bibloigraphy:
Fig. 1: http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/BigPictures/Aristarchus.jpeg
Fig. 2: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Copernican_heliocentrism_diagram-2.jpg
Fig. 3: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Nikolaus_Kopernikus.jpg
I like the points that you bring up about Copernicus and his heliocentric model. I think it is also important to note that Copernicus' complete model is no more accurate and just as complex as the previous Ptolemaic model - he used many complex mathematical formulas in order to substantiate and validate his model. Because of this complexity, later astronomers and scientists attempted to find simpler models, such as Kepler who introduced the accurate geocentric model. In turn, this reflects the notion of science that "science progresses through the creation and testing of models of nature that explain the observations as simply as possible."
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job of displaying all the strong points that Copernicus made as well as his weak points such as his belief that the orbits had to be completely circular. However, it is not that his belief for perfect circular orbits was a norm in his days it was a whole hearted belief by all. The reasoning behind this belief was that the heavens were looked at as perfect, thus a call for a perfect circular orbit was necessary. To say that the orbits were anything other than circular was to say that the heavens were in fact not perfect. This "proof" of the heavens not being perfect did not come until Galileo used one of his instrumented telescopes to look at the craters on the moon and spots on the sun displaying that the heavens were infact not perfect. This discovery provided evidence that it was ok to have non circular orbits like the ellipse's that Kepler had discovered and applied to the Copernican model.
ReplyDeletehttp://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Copernicus.html