Sunday Special-An Idea that moved the World!
Nicolaus Copernicus Before Copernicus, most people thought that the Sun and the other planets revolved around the Earth,this was called geocentrism In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus p ublished Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs , a treatise that put forth his revolutionary idea that the Sun was at the center of the universe and that the Earth--rotating on an axis--orbited around the sun once a year. Copernicus' theory was a challenge to the accepted notion contained in the natural philosophy of Aristotle, the astronomy of Ptolemy and the teachings of the Church that the sun and all the stars revolved around a stationary Earth. In the half-century since its publication, however, Copernicus' theory met mostly with skepticism. The Roman Catholic Church was a powerful force in Europe during the time of the Scientific Revolution. The birth and growth of science led to conflicts between scientists and the Church. Reason for Conflict There were t...