Just for the record, Aristarchus of Samos outlined a heliocentric model
of the universe 1700 years before Copernicus.
Chris
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-2100 ex. 66164
[email protected]
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
==========================
=========
Marc Carter wrote:
Good points, John.
It was really Copernicus who gave us the notion that you could better explain
the motions of the planets; it was Kepler who worked out elliptical orbits (but
hated them -- circular motion required no explanation, but ellipses do), and
Newton who invented gravity to explain the elliptical orbits.
Galileo gave observational evidence that there were more than "seven heavenly
bodies" in his observations of the satellites of Jupiter.
He gets the "blame" because he was the one who provided evidence for the notion
that things weren't as the Ptolemaic system would have it.
m
--
Marc Carter, PhD
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Psychology
College of Arts & Sciences
Baker University
--
-----Original Message-----
From: John Kulig [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 6:44 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Galileo Was Wrong?
Yeah, I agree! (sort of, but ...) My understanding (haven't
read the original) is that Copernicus (Latinized from the
Polish name Kopernik) was theoretically embedded in the
medieval way of thinking which was to try to fit the
available data into pre-existing medieval-style thinking. I
believe he showed that either a geo or helio-centered
universe could be made consistent with existing data. Galileo
deserves a tremendous amount of credit for pushing science
forward, but look to Kepler's three laws of planetary motion
(1609/1619) for a real data-driven science (Tycho Brahe's
data though), moving from the perfect circles of medieval
thinking to elliptical orbits. But in empirically derived
laws, he saw a different sort of perfection, mathematically,
such as the relationship between distance from the sun and
time to orbit (3rd law I believe) ...
==========================
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
====================================================================
GALILEO GALILEI:
I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has
endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us
to forgo their use.
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