book was dedicated to Pope Paul III and he received it gratefully. Copernicus still made use of .

             Ptolemy"s cycles and epicycles and he also borrowed from Aristotle the idea that the planets .

             must move in circles because it is the only perfect form of motion. In reality copernicus"s book .

             marked a change in human thought. Owen Barfield, in his book 'Saving the Appearances" calls it .

             "the real turning point" in the history of science. "It took place when copernicus began to think, .

             and others, like Kepler and Galileo , began to affirm that the heliocentric hypothesis not only .

             saved the appearances, but was physically true. It was not simply a theory of the nature of .

             celestial movements that was feared but a new theory of the nature of theory; namely that , if a .

             hypothesis saves all the appearances , it is identical with the truth." Copernicus"s book stated that .

             the earth was not at the centre of the universe with the sun revolving around it, this is .

             problematic for Christians who viewed the Aristotlian image of the earth at the centre as in the .

             bible the sun moves around the earth; Joshua 10:13.

             "And the sun and moon stood still, till the people revenged themselves of their enemies. Is not .

             this written in the book of the just? So the sun stood still in the midst of the heaven, and hasted .

             not to go down the space of one day.".

             It took Copernicus four years to have the confidence to publish the book, he wasn"t afraid about .

             how the church would react but how academics would view it. He was afraid because Aristotle"s .

             work was highly praised whereas he was introducing a new, unproved system of cosmology .

             which apparently went against the teachings of the bible.

             In 1609 telescopic observations of the skies were made by Galileo. After hearing about .

             the invention of a telescope in Holland he built one for himself and what he found were to have .

             major consequences for the Aristotelian cosmos.