ASTRO 142 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Venus Observed, Circular Motion, Anthropocentrism
Document Summary
Initially believed that earth is still and everything else moves around it. Greeks built the foundation for modern science. Greeks agreed earth had to be round not flat: believed earth was not center. Moving objects tend to come to rest and stay in rest. Geocentric model aligns with anthropocentric attitudes that dominated most human thought. Greeks relied heavily on geometry and symmetry to design model of universe: exodus introduced 27 different celestial spheres to exhibit the cosmos. Aristotle developed his model within a general physical theory: proposed earth moves in a straight line with respect to the center of the universe. Earth a sphere so objects falling down are actually moving toward center of sphere. Therefore cosmos must lie at the center of the earth: aristotle"s law of motion introduced the idea that force causes a deviation from natural motion.
