(a) Copernicus: He was a mathematician and astronomer, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the sun rather than the earth at the center of the universe. The publication of this model in his book De revolutionists orbium celestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial spheres) just before his ***** in 1543 is regarded as a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution.
Copernicus based his Heliocentric theory on the following:
There is no one center of all celestial circles or spheres.
The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only of gravity and of the lunar sphere.
All the spheres revolve about the sun as their midpoint and therefore, the sun is the center of the universe.
The earth has more than one motion, turning on its axis and moving in a spherical orbit around the sun.
(b) Galileo: Galileo, an Italian Astronomer (1564-1642) used a telescope, the greatest scientific instrument of the **, to study the movements of heavenly bodies for Copernicus’ theory. Galileo was tried by the ** for challenging its belief and authority. His book was burnt. Three years later, Giordano Bruno was burnt in Rome by the ** for insisting that the Earth goes round the Sun.
