Astronomy and Renaissance
The Renaissance was a time for reform. Renaissance, French for rebirth, describes the intellectual and economic changes that occurred in Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. During this time, Europe emerged from the economic decline of the Middle Ages and experienced a time of financial growth. Most importantly, the Renaissance was an age in which artistic, social, scientific, and political thought revolutionized. In the area of astrology, Renaissance scientists changed the ideas and theories that were familiar in the Middle Ages. Scientists such as Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) made new discoveries, introduced new instruments, and developed ideas that modernized Renaissance beliefs. During the Middle Ages and even going back to early Greek and Roman culture, it was believed that the earth was the center of the universe. The sun, moon, planets, and stars had two functions: first, motion in orbit around the fixed earth, and second, a participation in the daily rotation of the celestial sphere which produced our daily cycle of night and day (Cohen, 37). Before Galileo and Copernicus, there was the theory com
In front of the Roman Inquisition, he was condemned for having advocated and spread a profane and philosophical absurd opinion (Cohen, 48). Galileo, Kepler, and Brahe would soon make discoveries of their own. In detail, he describes the appearances of the stars and planets, and tried to explain how the universe was constructed and how it worked (Ptolemaic System, 2). Galileo was brought to trial because of this book. Galileo also abandoned Ptolemaic and Aristotle's theories to create his own through use of new, modernized instruments. As telescopes got bigger and powerful, astronomers were able to observe millions of stars and a universe that seemed interminable. Galileo was a pioneer in formulating the view that the truths of science must be expressed in mathematics and not observation alone. That was the reasoning why the earth was in the center of the universe. He announced a series of discoveries with the newly invented astronomical telescope. In Aristotle's physics, bodies moved to their natural places. Aristotle's philosophy involved the qualitative study of all natural phenomena, pursued without the aid of mathematics, which was deemed to be too "perfect" for application on an imperfect terrestrial sphere. Using observations by Tycho, Kepler followed the ways of Copernicus and altered the structure of astronomical theory. Even Galileo did not recognize the importance of Kepler's work (Drake, 18). A stationary sun and a moving Earth clashed with many biblical passages. Kepler showed that if the planets followed elliptical orbits around the sun, it would be easy to predict accurately the exact position they will be at any time.
Common topics in this essay:
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Nicholas Copernicus,
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Acceptance Essays
