How did Copernicus and Galileo change history?

Answer 1

Copernicus was dead so he didn't help him, but he helped prove his theory of heliocentrism. His telescope observations helped to prove the theory that everything revolves around the sun, instead of the geocentric idea that everything revolved around the Earth.

Answer 2

Copernicus put forward the heliocentric idea that the Sun is at the centre of the solar system, and devised a theory of circles and epicycles, similar to Ptolemy's geocentric theory, to explain and predict the way the planets move.

Galileo started by promoting the geocentric theory but in midlife he took up the heliocentric theory and promoted it, but fell out with the church that said it was ok as a theory but it was not ok to promote is as a proven fact. Galileo ignored that and was eventually tried for heresy.

But Galileo did not only study astronomy, but made important discoveries in the field of physics and founded the science of dynamics.

Later, after Newton's time, science advanced to the point where it was generally accepted that the Sun is at the centre of the solar system.

Answer 3

Copernicus's model of the planets' orbits, with the Sun at the centre instead of the Earth, prompted people to think more about the nature of the planets and whether they revolved round the Earth or not.

Later Galileo took up the theory enthusiastically and also discovered moons round Jupiter that clearly did not orbit the Earth, thus providing the first evidence of objects for which the Earth was not the centre of the Universe.

However Galileo jumped the gun and caused a rift with the church authorities by claiming that the Earth actually does revolve round the Sun, before there was enough evidence for it, and his combative style landed him in a lot of trouble. Eventually he was put in court and asked for proof, which he could not produce.

Later in the 18th and 19th century more and more scientific discoveries were made that eventually caused everyone to realise that the Earth really does orbit round the Sun. Formal acknowledgement of this was finally made by Pope John Paul II in 1993.

One of the main objections to the heliocentric theory had been that the stars showed no change in their positions as the Earth supposedy travelled round the Sun. However Friedrich Bessel showed in 1838 that the nearby star 61 Cygni actually does appear to move to and fro every six months, but that the change was so slight that even this relatively close star hardly moved at all. This made people realise for the first time that the stars might be at unimaginably large distances. Nowadays objects are observed at distances a billion times further than 61 Cygni.

Answer 4

They introduced the modern concept of experimentation through observation.