ASTR 1210 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1-7: Apparent Retrograde Motion, Geocentric Model, Scientific Method
9 May 2016
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Document Summary
Scientific thinking relies on trial and error thinking that we use in our everyday lives, but in a carefully organized way. Ancient cultures used astronomical observations to help them keep track of time and the seasons, crucial skills for people who depended on agriculture for survival. Ancient astronomers learned to tell the time of day and the time of year, to track cycles of the moon and to observe planets and stars. The greeks developed models of nature and emphasized the importance of having the predictions of these models agree with observations of nature. The ptolemaic model explained apparent retrograde motion by having each planet move on a small circle whose center moves around earth on a larger circle. (this was the. Copernicus created a sun-centered model of the solar system designed to replace the. Ptolemaic model (but it was still wrong because it used perfect circles) Tycho provided us with naked-eye observations and data needed to improve.
