Edwina and Eric

Heliocentric Model
The heliocentric theory was proposed by many astronomers throughout history, with
varying degrees of success and recognition. This theory is about how the earth and
universe orbits around the sun.

The idea was first proposed by a Greek astronomer and mathematician names
Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC. His idea placed the Earth and other
planets in motion around the central Sun. However, his theory was rejected by
everyone in favour of Aristotle's Geocentric theory that the earth was central.

Claudius ptolemy (85-165 AD) was a philosopher from Alexandria. He theorised that
the earth was motionless, because constant wind gales would sweep across the
earth if it were moving, and that all the planets and stars moved around it instead.
Ptolemy devised a complex system of "epicycles" to account for the apparent
forwards and backwards motion of the planets. In Ptolemy's epicycle system,
everything revolved around the earth in a large circle while spinning in smaller
circles. This theory was widely accepted by people at that time because of their
strong religion and belief that everything was centred around God.

It was not until the 16th century that the first scientific treatise provided detailed
support for heliocentrism. A Polish mathematician, astronomer, and catholic cleric,
Nicolaus Copernicus, put forth the theory that the sun is at rest near the centre of
the universe, and that the earth spins on its axis once daily and revolves annually
around the sun. He published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (English: On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in 1543.

The deconstruction of the Heliocentric model was achieved in steps. Giordano Bruno
strongly advocated how the sun infact wasnt the center of the universe, rather one
of a few billion stars. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Suns status as the
only one in the universe was slowly being replaced by the Sun being merely one
star among many. The Heliocentric model was totally replaced in the 20 th century by
the model we have today.

Even if the discussion is limited to the solar system, the Sun is not at the geometric
center of any planet's orbit, but rather approximately at one focus of the elliptical
orbit. Furthermore, to the extent that a planet's mass cannot be neglected in
comparison to the Sun's mass, the center of gravity of the solar system is displaced

Edwina and Eric

slightly away from the center of the Sun.[95] (The masses of the planets, mostly
Jupiter, amount to 0.14% of that of the Sun.) Therefore, a hypothetical astronomer
on an extrasolar planet would observe a small "wobble" in the Sun's motion.

From publication until about 1700, few astronomers were convinced by the
Copernican system, though the book was relatively widely circulated (around 500
copies of the first and second editions have survived which is a large number by the
scientific standards of the time). Few of Copernicus' contemporaries were ready to
concede that the Earth actually moved, although Erasmus Reinhold used
Copernicus' parameters to produce the Prutenic Tables. These tables translated
Copernicus' mathematical methods back into a geocentric system, rejecting
heliocentric cosmology on physical and theological grounds. The Prutenic tables
came to be preferred by Prussian and German astronomers. The degree of improved
accuracy of these tables remains an open question, but their usage of Copernican
ideas led to more serious consideration of a heliocentric model. However, even
forty-five years after the publication of De Revolutionibus, the astronomer Tycho
Brahe went so far as to construct a cosmology precisely equivalent to that of
Copernicus, but with the Earth held fixed in the center of the celestial sphere
instead of the Sun. It was another generation before a community of practicing
astronomers appeared who accepted heliocentric cosmology.