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
With these observations, Johannes Kepler was able to discover that planets move in elliptical orbits. Kepler spent part of his life as Tycho's assistant (Bova, 13). He deduced the true laws of planetary motion; he discovered how the planets orbit around the Sun (Bova, 14). Before, astronomers had assumed that heavenly bodies travel across the sky in perfect circular paths. 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. Kepler also discovered the law of area, according to which the speed of a planet in orbit varies in such a way that a line drawn from the sun to the planet will sweep through the same are in the same amount of time, no matter what part of the orbit the planet is in. In all, he found three planetary laws (Cohen, 48). These laws would later lead Isaac Newton to the discovery of the universal gravitation theory. Aristotle (384-322 BC) supported the theory of an earth centered universe with laws of physics and philosophy. Aristotle was a student of Plato, founding his own school of Natural Philosophy, the Lyceum, in Athens about 335 BCE. 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. In Aristotelian cosmology, the "imperfect" Earth was situated at the center of the Universe. It was composed of the four elements: earth, air, water, and fire, each of which sought its natural place in the Universe. Earthen bodies fall to Earth, rain falls from the sky, traveling through rivulets, to streams, to rivers and finally to the sea. (Smith, 6) For 1,500 years people believed in this theory until Copernicus, a Polish churchman, shattered this concept of the universe (Copernican System, 1). Galileo, Kepler, and Brahe would soon make discoveries of their own. In 1610, Galileo changed the ideas of astronomy in the renaissance once more. Even Galileo did not recognize the importance of Kepler's work (Drake, 18). He announced a series of discoveries with the newly invented astro
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Approximate Word count = 1469
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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