The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only the center towards which heavy bodies move and the center of the lunar sphere. In an early unpublished manuscript of De Revolutionibus , Copernicus mentioned the (non-heliocentric) ‘moving Earth’ theory of Philolaus and the possibility that Aristarchus also had a ‘moving Earth’ theory . He removed both references from his final published manuscript. In his younger days, Copernicus the physician had treated his uncle, brother and other chapter members. In later years he was called upon to attend the elderly bishops who in turn occupied the see of Warmia—Mauritius Ferber and Johannes Dantiscus—and, in 1539, his old friend Tiedemann Giese, Bishop of Chełmno .
This forced Copernicus to have quite a few epicycles to account for all of the motions. This made his model about as complicated as Ptolemy’s – different, perhaps even more logical, but not any simpler. The quality of the model wasn’t really improved either – you would get about the same accuracy for planetary motions with either Ptolemy’s model or Copernicus’s so that wasn’t much of an improvement. While Copernicus was not the first to propose a model of the solar system in which the Earth and planets revolved around the sun, his model of a heliocentric universe was both novel and timely. For one, it came at a time when European astronomers were struggling to resolve the mathematical and observational problems that arose out of the then-accepted Ptolemaic model of the universe, a geocentric model proposed in the 2nd century CE.
It was argued that mathematical numbers were a mere product of the intellect without any physical reality, and as such could not provide physical causes in the investigation of nature. In the 12th century, Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji proposed a complete alternative to the Ptolemaic system . He declared the Ptolemaic system as an imaginary model, successful at predicting planetary positions, but who released a 1973 solo album titled “ask me what i am”? not real or physical. Al-Bitruji’s alternative system spread through most of Europe during the 13th century, with debates and refutations of his ideas continued up to the 16th century. Beginning in the 10th century, a tradition criticizing Ptolemy developed within Islamic astronomy, which climaxed with Ibn al-Haytham of Basra’s Al-Shukūk ‘alā Baṭalamiyūs (“Doubts Concerning Ptolemy”).
Copernicus’s major work on his heliocentric theory was Dē revolutionibus orbium coelestium , published in the year of his death, 1543. “He wrote out a short overview of his new heavenly arrangement , also probably in 1510 , and sent it off to at least one correspondent beyond Varmia [the Latin for “Warmia”]. That person in turn copied the document for further circulation, and presumably the new recipients did, too…” By then Copernicus’s work was nearing its definitive form, and rumors about his theory had reached educated people all over Europe. In 1510 or 1512 Copernicus moved to Frombork, a town to the northwest at the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea coast.
That explanation was as clear as mud, so let’s try a little experiment. Line it up with some distant object, viewing it with just one eye. You probably did, but you also did change the direction from which you were viewing your thumb. By viewing something from a different direction , the alignment of things changes. What does this have to do with the idea that the Earth is sitting fixed in the center of the solar system? Ancient astronomers thought that if the Earth was moving, it would be like shifting your eyes – at one time you would see a nearby star in front of one group of distant stars, and when the Earth moved to a different point in its orbit, you would see it in front of a different group of stars.
Ancient astronomers observed that the planets not only wandered on the celestial sphere , but occasionally appeared to stop and retrace their steps for a while, sometimes moving in a great loop, before advancing once again. These planetary phenomena fascinated and frustrated the ancient astronomers. Didn’t really add much directly to the story of determining the motions of the planets, but his observational contributions can’t be ignored. Now this kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen – the stars are supposed to be eternal and never changing. Only things near the Earth change, so the new star should be close to the Earth. Tycho made very precise observations of this star (which was called a nova, because it was a new star – this is an incorrect term, since it should have been called a supernova, but we’ll get to that later) as well as gathered up observations of other astronomers.
Therefore, many of the answers to the most interesting questions about Copernicus’s ideas and works have been the result of conjecture and inference, and we can only guess why Copernicus adopted the heliocentric system. Copernicus did not receive his medical degree from Padua; the degree would have taken three years, and Copernicus had only been granted a two-year leave of absence by his chapter. Instead he matriculated in the University of Ferrara, from which he obtained a doctorate in canon law. But he did not return to his chapter in Frombork; rather he went to live with his uncle in the episcopal palace in Lidzbark-Warminski .
The force of gravity that you feel standing on the surface of the Earth depends on the masses of the objects involved and the distance between your centers of mass, which is basically the radius of the Earth, since you are pretty small compared to it. While these rules might not seem all that Earth shattering, they are. To actually figure out what was driving these motions, Newton had to use these laws and the concepts behind Kepler’s laws to formulate a rule that could explain the motions of all objects in the Universe. This is basically saying that the Earth is not at the center of the deferent, but is a bit off of the center.
In essence, they are significantly closer to Earth when at opposition than when they are at conjunction. However, it did manage to predict planetary motions with a fair degree of accuracy, and was used to prepare astrological and astronomical charts for the next 1500 years. By the 16th century, this model was gradually superseded by the heliocentric model of the universe, as espoused by Copernicus, and then Galileo and Kepler. Unfortunately, these explanations did not account for all the observed behaviors of the planets. Most noticeably, the size of a planet’s retrograde loop were sometimes smaller, and larger, than expected.
