The heliocentric theory or heliocentrism, exposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in the middle of the 16th century, postulates that the Sun is the center of the universe, around which planets and stars revolve, and not the Earth, as had been believed since the 2nd century AD..
Before the publication and dissemination of Copernicus's work, De Revolitionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the revolutions of the celestial orbs, 1543), the best known and most accepted theory in Europe was that of the Hellenistic astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD)..
Ptolemy supported the Aristotelian theory of the Earth as the center of the universe, creating a model to explain the different movements of the Sun, planets and stars around the Earth, exposed in his work Almagest, widespread and used widely by Arabs and Christians until the 16th century.
The word heliocentrism comes from greek helios (sun) and kentron (center).
The first author to propose the Sun as the center of the universe was Aristarchus of Samos (270 BC), a sage from the Library of Alexandria who had also estimated the size of the Earth and the distance between it and the Sun..
But this idea would not be imposed on the one developed by Aristotle, with a fixed Earth, surrounded by a series of spheres in which the Sun, the Moon, the planets and other stars were inserted. This system will be perfected by another sage from the Library of Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemy (145 AD)..
But we will have to wait until the 16th century and the work of the Polish priest, mathematician and astronomer, Nicolás Copernicus, for the Earth to be displaced by the Sun as the center of the universe..
The heliocentric theory places the Sun at the center of the universe, with the Earth, the other planets, and the stars revolving around it. Copernicus also postulated that the Earth had three movements: around the Sun, rotation and declination around its axis..
Like Ptolemy in his Almagest, Copernicus based his theory on a theoretical justification and on a series of tables and calculations to predict the movement of the stars..
In a text before About revolutions (When he speaks of revolution he refers to the circular movement, as was his belief, of celestial objects around the Sun), Copernicus affirmed:
"All the spheres revolve around the Sun, which is in the middle of all of them [...] any movement that seems to occur in the sphere of the fixed stars is not actually due to any movement of the latter, but rather to the movement of the earth".
Nicolás Copernicus (1473-1543), was a Polish Catholic clergyman, mathematician, astronomer, jurist and physicist, who studied canon law, medicine and astronomy (the latter discipline informally), in academic centers in Krakow, Bologna, Padua and Ferrara, obtaining a doctorate in canon law.
While studying in Italy, he began to interact with physicists and astronomers, including the Bolognese astronomer, Domenico Novara, of whom he was an assistant and disciple..
With the support of his uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, Bishop of Warmia, upon returning to Poland he began his career as a Catholic clergyman, established in the Cathedral of Frauenburg (Frombork), until his death in 1543..
In Frombork he builds a series of instruments with which he will study the movements of the stars for years, making calculations and annotations that would lead him to consider the Sun as the true center of the universe..
He would also have to carry out administrative activities and even lead the resistance against military attacks by the Teutonic Knights (1520).
Some Copernicus texts began to circulate among mathematicians and astronomers proposing a heliocentric model as early as 1507, such as the Commentarialus (1507); these texts were partially known to the church in Rome, whose authorities had expressed interest in them.
But the work that finally makes his theory known, On the revolutions of the celestial orbs, It will be published almost posthumously, in 1543, the same year that Copernicus died of a stroke..
For 1,500 years the geocentric theory (the Earth as the center of the universe), inherited from Aristotle's thought and sustained by the calculations and reasoning of Claudius Ptolemy, was the version supported and approved by both academics and the Catholic Church..
It is in this context where Nicolás Copernicus proposes his heliocentric theory, with the Sun as the center of the known universe (which was quite limited at that time), and in principle his proposal does not generate major commotion in the church, until it begins to receive support. of figures such as Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) or Giordano Bruno (1548-1600).
Giordano Bruno will even go further, considering the Sun as one more star in a universe with an infinite number of stars. But his opinion will not be taken seriously until the beginning of the 20th century..
The Catholic Church banned the theory and works of Copernicus from 1616, amid the conflict caused by the division of the church and the rise of Protestantism.
Copernicus, who dedicated his greatest work to Pope Paul III, did not realize that by displacing the Earth as the center of the universe he was doing something similar with the human being and his religious thought.
Precisely in the dedication to the Pope, Copernicus asserts: "Mathematics is written for mathematicians, to whom these works of ours, if my opinion does not deceive me, will seem that they contribute something to the ecclesiastical republic whose principality now has His Holiness".
The Copernican view of the universe is considered an essential part of the beginning of the scientific revolution, because it gives priority to mathematics and observation over philosophical or theological theories..
His theory on the circular motion of the planets will be corrected by the astronomical observations of Galileo and by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who in 1609 formulates his laws on the elliptical motion of the planets..
The idea of the Sun as the center of the universe will be gradually discarded, as astronomical observations and observation instruments have improved..
Scientific knowledge will make us go from systems with the Earth or the Sun as the center, to a universe like the one intuited by Giordano Bruno 500 years ago, with millions of planets, stars and galaxies.
Yet No Comments