subject: Scientific Picture Of The World [print this page] They are necessary for proper presentation of the history of science on the starry sky. Usually, highlights the contribution of the thinker or the scientist in a new picture of the world, but it is not stated its commitment to certain aspects of the old pictures, and meanwhile the old and usually go hand in hand and very well co-exist in the worldview of the same researcher.
Let's start with Aristarchus of Samos (320 ... 250 BC), try without trigonometric functions to determine the distance from Earth to the Sun and the Moon and the diameter of the Sun. However, the greatest merit of Aristarchus is hypothesizing the heliocentric system of the world, part of the sharp contradiction with the ancient natural philosophy. Indeed, he argued that the Earth rotates on its axis and at the same time a circle around the sun, inclined to the equator, but as a tribute to the old, considered at the same time that the sun and the stars are fixed. But even before he Eudoxus (408 ... 355 BC) tried to represent the motion of celestial bodies in the form of a system of rotating spheres. Undoubtedly, the pinnacle of astronomical ideas of antiquity was Ptolemy (83 ... 162 years.) From Alexandria. He united to achieve the ancient Greek astronomers and mathematicians who created the immortal work of the "Great construction of mathematical astronomy in thirteen books, which the Arab mathematicians gave the name" Almagest ". From the standpoint of our days seem to be his painting is a step back from Aristarchus of Samos, as the center of the world in Ptolemy - Earth and planets and the sun revolves around it.
Greek astronomy was geometric, not dynamic, the motion of celestial bodies appeared as a uniform and circular. The concept of force completely absent. Was substantiated the idea of spheres, which moved as an entity and which were fixed celestial bodies. But still, why the concept geliotsentrizma not won in ancient astronomy? For Aristarchus was not alone. Heraclitus of Pontus, a contemporary of Aristotle, discovered that Venus and Mercury orbit the Sun, but we also believe that, together with the Sun they revolve around the earth, the earth, in his opinion, revolves around its axis in 24 hours. And before his Pythagoreans regarded the Earth as a planet, and believed that all planets, including Earth, moving around, but not around the Sun, but around the "central fire, which they called the House of Zeus. The final hypothesis of Aristarchus was adopted by the Babylonian astronomer Seleucus (c. 150 BC), but no more than one astronomer. Why? - I mean, of course, not the mass consciousness, and the scientific community. This is a general denial geliotsentrizma ancient scientists must Hipparchus (161 ... 126 BC) and finally enshrined by Ptolemy. The fact that the heliocentric system of the world was not matematizirovana and therefore did not have the status of science. Younger contemporary of Aristarchus - Archimedes did not accidentally marked the idea geliotsentrizma as "hypothesis" and that was the view of almost all ancient scientific community. Thus, the restoration geocentrism Hipparchus of Nicaea, Apollonius Pergasskim and, finally, Ptolemy of Alexandria was inevitable. This model proved to be durable peace and existed until the XVI century.
His role in blocking the idea geliotsentrizma played and cosmology of Aristotle, who fizikaliziroval mathematical model of the heavenly spheres of Eudoxus. Aristotle literally understood the idea of Eudoxus that every star and planet have their own sphere, to which they are attached, and thus revolve around the Earth not the planets and stars, and bearing their area. Plato understood the inadequacy of scope for explaining the apparent anomalies in the sky. Just a listener to the Academy Eudoxus proposed a mathematical hypothesis, which allows a lot of spherical motions. Combining with each other, they give the displacement of stars visible. To the moon and sun, he put on three areas, and for the fixed stars - one, as a result he received 26 spheres. But again, it was a geometric-mathematical model, the physical status it gave Aristotle and thus secured a half millennia. Kalipos increased the number of spheres to 33 later introduced spheres - reagents, moving backwards, and as a result of antiquity has left the future of astronomy in 1955 spheres. This multiplication of spheres gave rise to the hypothesis "entsiklov", according to which the planets revolve around the sun, and it in turn with them revolves around the Earth.
A similar situation occurred with Aristarchus and Copernicus geliotsentrizmom. Contrary to popular belief about the triumphant acceptance of his system must be stated otherwise. Again, this is not about mass consciousness and not of the Church. Of course, Luther and Calvin condemned kopernikanstvo; Vatican is - almost a hundred years after the publication of the book of Copernicus, that is persecution of a new system of peace on the part of the Church in fact was not a long time. Moreover, the Spanish Inquisition in general did not address the problem of science, and Galileo at one time thought to escape from an inquisitorial court in Spain. Again it comes to the scientific community, but it did not take a long time the hypothesis of Copernicus. Why?
Because, firstly, at the time of Copernicus were not aware of facts that would lead to his system, but was known for a number of facts that spoke against it. His main work "On the inversion of the Heavenly Spheres" was published in 1543, the year of death of the author. The book was dedicated to Pope Paul III, and not subject to ecclesiastical censure until the time of Galileo. And in the preface, made his friend and publisher of the book Osianderom, as well as in the book itself Copernicus clearly noted that the heliocentric concept put forward as a hypothesis. And for that reason was, as Copernicus faced with difficulties. The biggest of them - is the lack of stellar parallaxes. Parallax (Greek: "deviation") - the apparent change in the position of the object through the movements of the observer's eye. That is, if the Earth to any point in its orbit is at a distance of 283664000 km from the point at which it will be in six months, this should cause a change in visible positions of the stars in the sky. However, no parallax was observed, and Copernicus is fair to assume that the stars are much farther removed from us than the Sun. Only in the nineteenth century, when the measurement technique was different than in the XVI century, it became possible to observe stellar parallax, and then only in respect of several nearby stars.
Secondly, the difficulty arose in the understanding of falling bodies. If the Earth rotates from west to east, the body thrown from a height, can not fall to a point located vertically from the place from which began his downfall. At the time of Copernicus' response to it was impossible to find, because this problem can be solved only through the law of inertia, and it opened Galileo. Russell rightly says: "We Copernicus was not possible to give an exhaustive proof in favor of his hypothesis, and for a long time, astronomers rejected it" [7, 626]. It took nearly two centuries, to the efforts of Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Newton led to the transformation hypothesis in a mathematically sound theory. Initially, as in the hypothesis of Copernicus drew its not true, and simplicity. In spirit it was more of a Pythagorean. After Copernicus remains unshakable axiom of the circular and uniform motion of celestial objects, however, it retains and Galileo, which rejected the elliptical motion of planets as proposed by Kepler. Copernicus, in his world view leaves the heavenly spheres - the carriers of the fixed stars, he still entsikly. In general, the new wine is poured, often in old bottles.
It turns out that Copernicus is really a revolution but only in understanding the structure of the solar system: not Earth, but the sun the center. Submissions on the world as a whole, it largely succeeds hermetic and Neo-Platonic tradition. Recall that the sun had still, as the sphere composed of ether, there are material. Tycho Brahe rejected the idea of the materiality of the celestial spheres, and hence of the fixed stars. But apart from simplicity, the Copernican system was matematizirovana. This is the first mathematical model geliotsentrizma and astronomers initially recognize it as a mathematical version and denied its physical nature. But after Kepler, who has completed a mathematical refinement of the Copernican system, was recognized and its physical essence. Slowly but steadily idea geliotsentrizma alleged in the scientific community. Yes, Copernicus turned the world system, putting forward an alternative Ptolemaic; but he also moved into his new heliocentric world many fragments and the structure of the old world, including the Ptolemaic encyclical. It took a long and dramatic events in their two-century-plus for a complete victory geliotsentrizma in European science.
