Astrotales

Copernicus did not "Revolutionize" Astronomy

All of us learned in school how Copernicus was the first to advance the heliocentric or Sun-centered theory that the planets revolve around the Sun. But Copernicus like Brahe was just as afraid of angering the Catholic Church which wanted to keep the Earth the center of the Solar System (and the Universe for that matter). For if the Earth was the Center and Rome was the spiritual center of the Earth, then the Universe would revolve around the Pope!

Several other prominent Greek thinkers hundreds of years Copernicus' predecessor proposed the heliocentric model. The most notable among them was Aristarchus. So much did Copernicus rely on Aristarchus that in the original draft of his treatise on a Sun-centered Solar System he struck out a quote from the Greek philosopher so that Copernicus would be appear as the originator.

If Copernicus wanted to take credit and be seen as the originator, he sure had a funny way of doing it. First, the tract was not published until after his death. Second, his publisher wrote a disclaimer saying the Sun-Centered Solar System was just a convenience to make the mathematics work out, that in fact everything in realty still revolved around the Earth! It would take Brahe's figures, Kepler's elliptical orbits, and Newton's Laws of Gravitation to once and for all anchor the heliocentric model in solid science. As for Copernicus, he learned mathematics and astronomy because he was studying medicine and in those days astrology was part of a medical degree.