Aristotle once viewed that the Earth is on the center of the universe and all other heavenly bodies revolve around it. It is viewed this way as he was studying the moon, the stars and the sun was revolving around the earth. The earth being on the center does not move, neither does it lie anywhere. As we can figure out from books and statements of Aristotle, he concluded three basic things about the universe. First is that the Earth is on the center of the universe, second is that it is spherical in shape and lastly that it is much smaller compared to other stars or planets (Kuhn, 1957).
Many people have proved that the Aristotelian Universe is wrong. One is Nicolaus Copernicus who as an astronomer developed the idea that the Sun is on the center of the universe, and all other planets are moving around them. As against the theory of Aristotle, Copernicus have developed the Copernican Heliocentrism, which succeeding astronomers and scientist have adopted (Wikipedia).
Tycho Brahe on the other hand developed the Tychonic system. Brahe was not a Copernican, he on the other hand have adopted the Copernican Heliocentrism but modified the same by stating that all planets revolve around the sun while the sun and the moon revolves around the earth (Wikipedia).
Galileo finally proved wrong the Aristotelian Universe. By inventing the telescope, he was able to study the movement of the planets and the movement of the earth. He developed the theory of the tides which proves the motion of the earth. For Galileo the sloshing back and forth of sea water causes the tides, the Earth’s surface speeds up and slows down the tide movement because the Earth rotates around its axis and the Earth rotates around the Sun. The main issue however was that in each day there are two high tides and Galileo was aware of this, there was an inadequacy in his research that the Earths movement causes the tides. He then dismissed this idea and considered this as a useless fiction. He also refused to accept the theory of Johannes Kepler that the moon causes the tides (Wikipedia).
As Galileo developed technology which he considers as entirely separate from pure physics. The development of technology such as the invention of the telescope gave the study of Physics an edge in the field of science. Because of these developments, study of physics became easier to prove. The invention of telescope, which is a technological advancement, proved that the Aristotelian Universe was wrong (Wikipedia).
References:
- Kuhn, Thomas.The Copernican Revolution. Harvard University Press. 1957.
- Galileo Galilei. Retrieved at <www.wikipedia.com>
- Nicolaus Copernicus. Retrieved at <www.wikipedia.com>
- Tycho Brahe. Retrieved at <www.wikipedia.com>
