nicolaus copernicus on the revolutions of the heavenly spheres

It went against common sense, it went against your feeling that certainly the ground underneath you is not moving, is not spinning around,' says Sobel. 'It went against everything that your senses tell you. It went against common sense, it went against your feeling that certainly the ground underneath you is not moving, is not spinning around.Īuthor Dava Sobel, on Copernicus' heliocentric theory It went against everything that your senses tell you.

Although the idea that the sun, not Earth, was at the center of things was outrageous, it did solve the problem of the planets appearing to move backward. 'He put the Earth, which had forever been considered the immobile center of the universe, he spun it on an axis and had it moving around the sun,' says Dava Sobel, author of A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos.

For example, the planets seem to move first one way and then the other in the sky. Oh, sure, there were a few bits of conflicting evidence. In the year 1500, every learned person in Europe knew one thing for absolutely certain: The sun and the planets travel around Earth.

In it, Copernicus made the astounding claim that Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. He's seen here circa 1515.īut before either of these, there was On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres by Nicolaus Copernicus. Nicolaus Copernicus made the astounding claim that Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around.

Nicolaus copernicus on the revolutions of the heavenly spheres