Heliocentrism

1. Heliocentrism The Founding Fathers

2. Background • Up until the 1500’s most scientists and theologies theorized that the planets orbited around the Earth. • The Ptolemaic Equant or Geocentric Theory was the main theory, before Heliocentrism came into focus. • The Ptolemaic Equant stated that a planet would orbit around Earth, however, to help explain the retrograde motion of the planets, it also stated that a planet would travel in a backwards circle as it orbited around Earth.

3. Nicolaus Copernicus • Born 1473. • After his Fathers death, he moved in with his Uncle into his Evangelical Palace. • Attended the University of Cracow, Bologna and Padua. • Even after attending all of these prestigious universities, he never earned a degree. • One of the first scientists to study the Heliocentric Theory.

4. Heliocentrism • “In the center of all rests the sun. For who would place this lamp of a very beautiful temple in another or better place than this, from which it can illuminate everything at the same time?... And so the sun, as if resting on a kingly throne, governs the family of stars which wheel around.”-Nicolaus Copernicus

5. How to account for retrograde motion. Earth(blue) is closer to the sun than Mars is(red). That being said, Earths year is shorter, wherefore, it’s orbit is faster than that of Mars. As illustrated in the photos to the right, the purple line represents our view of Mars, as we go through our orbit. In the first and second slide, it would appear that Mars is moving forward with us. At the third slide, it seems that Mars’ orbit has stopped for just a moment. In the fourth and fifth slide, our orbit has moved passed Mars’ orbit, thus, as we view it, Mars appears to be moving in the opposite direction. 1 2 3 4 5

6. Bibliography • http://library.thinkquest.org/28327/html/exploration/people/copernicus.html • http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/ • http://www.space.com/15684-nicolaus-copernicus.html • http://science.larouchepac.com/kepler/astronomianova/part1/6