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Subject: Physical Science


Year Level: Grade 12
Semester: First
Lecture Note #: 7

Topic: Models of the Universe

Learning Content

The Greek worldview was the most long-lived in the history of scientific cosmology.
Closely tied to the pseudo-science of astrology, it continued from ancient Greece
through medieval Islamic civilization to seventeenth-century Europe.
Underlying the Greek worldview was the philosophy of Plato. He sought a deeper level
of reality than that accessible to the senses. He also pursued a simple theory about the
universe which had incredible explanatory power. The result was a belief in uniform,
circular motion. This belief dominated the thinking of many Western astronomers and
cosmologists for two thousand years.

Geocentric Models: Earth as the Center of the Universe

Plato's Views on the Cosmos

The ancient Greeks developed, over a period of centuries, an elaborate cosmology. By


cosmology is meant the structure and the origin of the universe. The earliest views,
going back to the time of Homer and Hesiod (the 8th century BC) postulated a flat or
cylindrical earth located in a hemispherical cosmos that surrounded or enveloped it. But
by the time of the thinkers associated with the legendary and mythical Pythagorus (560-
480BC, app.), the view became widely accepted that the earth was a sphere in a
universe which was itself also fully spherical. This claim was based both on theoretical
grounds:

(i) the belief that the circle or sphere was the most perfect of geometric shapes, and
therefore appropriate for the earth and the cosmos, which were the most important of
objects, and

(ii) on practical grounds -- the observations of a ship and its mast as the vessel receded
beyond the horizon. Moreover, it was possible for the ancient Greeks to calculate the

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ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
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diameter of the earth (and therefore its circumstances) through trigonometric


considerations. This was done by Eratosthenes, a Greek living in Alexandria, Egypt,
around 230BC, and (depending on how his unit of length is interpreted) was accurate to
within 5% of current measurements.

Plato (427-347 BC), in his later work entitled Timaeus sketched out a theory of the
origin and nature of the cosmos. The world was the creation of a "Demiurge" (from the
Greek "demos" or people and "ourgos" or work) -- the most highly placed of gods,
working in the "public" interest (Plato, like the ancient Greeks generally, was a polytheist
-- a believer in many gods). This superior god was by nature good, and so tried to
create an image of itself that was as good as possible. But the Demiurge could not
create a world out of nothing; its powers were more limited than the God of Genesis.
The Demiurge fashioned the cosmos out of materials provided by a pre-existing
"chaos", or jumble of matter, which the Demiurge organized into the four elements --
Earth, Water, Air and Fire. These formed the "body" of the cosmos, which was also
endowed with a "soul". The soul of the cosmos, which Plato considered as its better or
more important part, was its principle of eternal and recurring circular motion, bringing
about the circular motion of the moon, planets, sun and stars.

It is presumed, though not explicitly stated by Plato, that the Earth is the center of the
cosmos, with the other heavenly bodies rotating about it. (Other interpretations of Plato
are possible, and we will see later that Copernicus attempted to do just this, though his
was a controversial interpretation of Plato). It was Aristotle (384-322 BC) who made
explicit the proposition that the earth is the center and does not move, with the sun as
well as the moon, planets and stars circling it.

Eudoxus’ Model of the Universe

Eudoxos of Knidos was born approximately 395-390 BCE and lived 53 years. A
polymath, he made important contributions to geography, metaphysics, and ethics.
However, his most important work was in geometry, the theory of proportion, and
astronomy. Our principal sources for his astronomy are Aristotle, Aratus (3rd cent.
BCE), Hipparchus (2nd cent. BCE), and Simplicius (6th cent. CE), although the last is
our principal source for his astronomical models. The first to present a general,
geometrical model of celestial motion, Eudoxos started with five basic principles.

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❖ The earth is the center of the universe.


❖ All celestial motion is circular.
❖ All celestial motion is regular.
❖ The center of the path of any celestial motion is the same as the center of its
motion.
❖ The center of all celestial motion is the center of the universe.
System of 27 Spheres:
❖ 1 for the fixed stars
❖ 3 each for the Sun and Moon
❖ 4 each for the 5 planets
Spheres within spheres in perfect circular motion combine to give retrograde motions.

Spheres within Spheres

Four Spheres for each planet:

❖ One was aligned with the celestial poles, turning once a day to give rising &
setting.
❖ Second was tilted 23.5°, rotated slowly in the opposite direction to give the usual
west-to-east drift of the planets relative to the fixed stars.
❖ Third & Fourth were introduced to produce the periodic retrograde motions of the
planets.

All were in uniform circular motion about their axes.

(*Retrieved from

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http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/hmendel/Ancient%20Mathematics/Eudoxus/Astronomy/
EudoxusHomocentricSpheres.htm )

Aristotle’s Model of the Universe

The Greek philosopher Aristotle proposed that the heavens were literally composed of
55 concentric, crystalline spheres to which the celestial objects were attached and
which rotated at different velocities (but the angular velocity was constant for a given
sphere), with the Earth at the center. The following figure illustrates the ordering of the
spheres to which the Sun, Moon, and visible planets were attached.

(*Retrieved from http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/retrograde/aristotle.html )

Aristotle's Views on the Cosmos

Aristotle based himself on various observations evident to the unaided eye (there were
no telescopes in ancient Greece): (i) We see the sun "rise" and "set" each day; (ii) We
don't feel that the earth moves under our feet; (iii) We see the stars describe a semi-

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Tel No. +63 (82) 221.2411 local 8608
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In Consortium with Ateneo de Zamboanga University and Xavier University
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circle about the horizon each night. All of these seem to imply that the earth is fixed at
the center and the sun moves around it. Moreover, (iii) from a cultural point of view, it
seemed appropriate that the earth -- the planet we inhabit -- be at the center, since after
all, aren't humans (and for Aristotle, the Greeks) the most important part of the cosmos?
Aristotle accepted the four Platonic elements of Earth, Water, Air and Fire as the basis
for phenomena on both the Earth (the planet) and in the atmosphere, but he added a
fifth element

❖ known as "aether" -- as the matter of the heavenly bodies (moon, planets, sun,
and stars). The motion of the aether, unlike that of the other four elements, had
neither beginning nor end, and so must be circular, he reasoned, since the circle has
neither beginning nor end. We can distinguish the primary elements of the theory as
follows:

(i) The earth as the center of the cosmos and does not move ("geocentrism")
(ii) The sun moves around the earth and is not its center ("heliodynamism")
(iii) Heavenly motions are circular (or spherical, in three dimensions)

Problems and Attempts at Solutions

Aristotle's theory became "canonical", or widely accepted as authoritative and definitive


for nearly 2000 years -- until the time of Copernicus and his successors. But there were
problems with the theory as expressed above, particularly as concerns the orbits of the
sun and the planets, which did not seem to describe a perfect circle (by naked eye
observation, using at most a sighting post). Among the problems were the following:

(i) At periodic times, the planets seemed to reverse their direction of motion
around the earth -- which is technically known as "retrograde" motion.

(ii) Planets sometimes seemed brighter and sometimes less bright, which was
interpreted to mean that they are sometimes closer and sometimes further from the
earth.

(iii) The solar seasons were not quite equal, as should be expected for perfectly
circular motion. It seemed that the sun was speeding up and slowing down at various
points in its orbits.

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ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
Km 7 Central Park Blvd, Talomo, 8016 Davao City, Philippines
Tel No. +63 (82) 221.2411 local 8608
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In Consortium with Ateneo de Zamboanga University and Xavier University


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The idea is the following: the mathematical theory is constrained, for metaphysical
reasons, to using only spheres, the most perfect solid, and strictly uniform motion, which
is the most perfect motion. But it must account for the retrograde motions of the planets,
which cannot be done with just one sphere for each planet, since that sphere must turn
uniformly. According to Simplicius (a commentator on Aristotle on ancient philosophy of
later antiquity), Plato set his students the following problem: basing themselves only on
uniform circular motions, to "save the phenomena", ie derive curves that would
correspond with the observed movements of the planets (the phenomena). The project
of "saving the phenomena" dominated cosmology until the time of Newton, and has the
following components:

(i) Basic assumption: All heavenly bodies move in circular motions or motions
compounded out of circles. The circle (in three dimension, the sphere) is the most
perfect of geometric figures, since each point on the circumference is equidisant from
the center, and the only curve appropriate to the movement of the heavenly bodies.

(ii) Empirical observation: But the heavenly bodies (with the exception of the
stars, which appear always to move in simple circular motion about the earth) do not
demonstrate simple circular motions - inlcuding the phenomena of retrograde motion,
varying brightnesses, and varying velocities.

(iii) Mathematical hypotheses: Now, the basic assumption must be maintained


(for intellectual reasons) and the empirical observations must be maintained as well (for
practical reasons: theory must meet the test of observation). Consequently, Plato's
question of "saving the phenomena" became: what types of mathematical hypotheses
can be fashioned using only circles and motions compounded out of circles, in order to
produce geometrical paths which approximate the observed motions.

(*Retrieved from http://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/Cosmology/Cosmo1Background.html )

Aristarchus of Samos (310-230BC)

Proposed a Heliocentric (sun-centered) system. It seems that his reasoning was the
large size he found for the Sun.

❖ Showed geometrically that the Sun was at least 20x further than the Moon.

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❖ Really 400x further: sound method, but inadequate data.


❖ Meant Sun was 5x bigger than the Earth (more like 109x, again, sound method
but inadequate data).
❖ Makes it even more absurd that the Sun should move, if the Earth was too large
to move according to Aristotle.

We know none of the details of Aristarchus' Heliocentric model. We only have his
treatise on the distances and sizes of the Moon and the Sun, from which we gather
what his motivations might have been. We know of his Heliocentric model only from
mention of it (usually dismissive) by others who came after him. Our primary surviving
source is the Sand Reckoner of Archimedes.

The heliocentric picture never caught on, perhaps because it was considered too radical
given deeply ingrained notions about uniform circular motion and the immobility of the
Earth.

Claudius Ptolemais (Ptolemy - c. 150 AD)

Astronomer and Geographer of the late classical age based at Alexandria, then a
colonial outpost of the Roman Empire.

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Wrote the Mathematical Syntaxis:

❖ Compilation of all Mathematical & Astronomical knowledge of his time.


❖ Known to us in Arabic translations that hailed it "Al Magest" ("The Greatest").
❖ Vastly influential work in medieval Europe after the 11th century.

Elaborated Hipparchus' geocentric system, adding extra features to better preserve


appearances.

The Equant

Ptolemy introduced the Equant, a geometric device to account for observed changes in
a planet's speed as it moved around the Earth.

❖ The Epicycle still moves about the center of the Deferent, but
❖ Uniform circular motion about the center of the deferent is replaced by uniform
angular motion about an off-center equant point.

This is a very complex construction that, again, was introduced to preserve


appearances, this time by replacing the pure Aristotelian and Platonic ideal of Uniform
Circular Motion with a slightly modified notion of uniform angular motion about the
equant.

Galileo’s Astronomical Discoveries

In the summer of 1609, while in Venice to visit some friends, Galileo heard about the
invention in Holland of a ``spyglass'' that could make distant objects appear near. The

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ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY
Km 7 Central Park Blvd, Talomo, 8016 Davao City, Philippines
Tel No. +63 (82) 221.2411 local 8608
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In Consortium with Ateneo de Zamboanga University and Xavier University
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military applications of such a device are obvious, and Galileo, probably motivated
mainly by the financial prospects, set about to re-invent it independently. Having
constructed a telescope of about twenty power, he turned it on the sky and rapidly made
several key discoveries:

1. The four major moons of Jupiter.


2. The phases of Venus.
3. The changes in apparent sizes of Venus and Mars.
4. The mountains of the moon.
5. Sunspots.
6. The small apparent sizes of the stars.

The first three of these discoveries were striking confirmations of the correctness of the
heliocentric theory. The moons of Jupiter constitute a solar system in miniature and
prove that at least some celestial objects revolve around a body other than the earth.
The phases of Venus and changes in apparent size of the planets had been predicted
by Copernicus, and the failure to see these effects had been considered up to then as
evidence against the heliocentric theory. Galileo showed that the failure to detect these
effects previously was simply due to the inadequacy of the unaided human visual
system.

The next pair of discoveries, of mountains on the moon and sunspots, do not seem, to
us, to be relevant to the debate between the geocentric and heliocentric theories.
However, the Ptolemaic system was closely intertwined with Aristotelian philosophy and
even with Christian theology. It was believed that whereas all things on earth are
subject to change, growth, decay, and death, things above the orbit of the moon are
changeless, perfect, and eternal. The very elements of which celestial bodies are made
were considered to be completely different from the terrestrial ones. But Galileo's
telescope showed that there were mountains on the moon, making it look as if that body
must be very similar to earth. Likewise, the solar spots appeared, moved about, and
disappeared, acting much like earthly storm clouds. The spots also demonstrated the
sun's rotation on its axis, and Galileo argued that their apparent paths across the face of
the sun indicated a moving point of view.

Finally, Galileo noticed that the fixed stars appear no larger through a telescope than
they do with the unaided eye. This observation removed another difficulty with the
heliocentric theory. Decades earlier, Tycho Brahe, the foremost astronomer of the

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sixteenth century, had pointed out that if the earth moves around the sun, then the stars
should show an annual parallax, or shift of position, much as objects viewed from the
window of a moving vehicle seem to move against the background. No such parallax
had been observed, which required the stars to be extremely far away. Based on the
apparent size of the stars as seen with the unaided eye, this meant that each star would
have to be larger than the whole solar system, a conclusion that seemed absurd. Now,
Galileo showed that in fact the apparent size of the stars was an artifact of the human
eye, and that the stars were indeed evidently very far off, too far for parallax to be
observable with the instruments of the time.

Copernican Model of the Universe

The Earth-centered Universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy held sway on Western thinking
for almost 2000 years. Then, in the 16th century a new idea was proposed by the Polish
astronomer Nicolai Copernicus (1473-1543).

The Heliocentric System

In a book called On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies (that was published as
Copernicus lay on his deathbed), Copernicus proposed that the Sun, not the Earth, was
the center of the Solar System. Such a model is called a heliocentric system. The
ordering of the planets known to Copernicus in this new system is illustrated in the
following figure, which we recognize as the modern ordering of those planets.

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Km 7 Central Park Blvd, Talomo, 8016 Davao City, Philippines
Tel No. +63 (82) 221.2411 local 8608
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In Consortium with Ateneo de Zamboanga University and Xavier University
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The Copernican Universe

In this new ordering the Earth is just another planet (the third outward from the Sun),
and the Moon is in orbit around the Earth, not the Sun. The stars are distant objects that
do not revolve around the Sun. Instead, the Earth is assumed to rotate once in 24
hours, causing the stars to appear to revolve around the Earth in the opposite direction.

Copernicus and the Need for Epicycles

There is a common misconception that the Copernican model did away with the need
for epicycles. This is not true, because Copernicus was able to rid himself of the long-
held notion that the Earth was the center of the Solar system, but he did not question
the assumption of uniform circular motion. Thus, in the Copernican model the Sun was
at the center, but the planets still executed uniform circular motion about it. As we shall
see later, the orbits of the planets are not circles, they are actually ellipses. As a
consequence, the Copernican model, with it assumption of uniform circular motion, still
could not explain all the details of planetary motion on the celestial sphere without
epicycles. The difference was that the Copernican system required many fewer
epicycles than the Ptolemaic system because it moved the Sun to the center.

The Copernican Revolution

We noted earlier that 3 incorrect ideas held back the development of modern astronomy
from the time of Aristotle until the 16th and 17th centuries:
(1) the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe,
(2) the assumption of uniform circular motion in the heavens, and
(3) the assumption that objects in the heavens were made from a perfect,
unchanging substance not found on the Earth.

Copernicus challenged assumption 1, but not assumption 2. We may also note that the
Copernican model implicitly questions the third tenet that the objects in the sky were

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made of special unchanging stuff. Since the Earth is just another planet, there will
eventually be a natural progression to the idea that the planets are made from the same
stuff that we find on the Earth.

Copernicus was an unlikely revolutionary. It is believed by many that his book was only
published at the end of his life because he feared ridicule and disfavor: by his peers and
by the Church, which had elevated the ideas of Aristotle to the level of religious dogma.
However, this reluctant revolutionary set in motion a chain of events that would
eventually (long after his lifetime) produce the greatest revolution in thinking that
Western civilization has seen. His ideas remained rather obscure for about 100 years
after his death. But, in the 17th century the work of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton would
build on the heliocentric Universe of Copernicus and produce the revolution that would
sweep away completely the ideas of Aristotle and replace them with the modern view of
astronomy and natural science. This sequence is commonly called the Copernican
Revolution.

Precise Observations before the Invention of the Telescope

Danish nobleman, Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), made important


contributions by devising the most precise instruments available before
the invention of the telescope for observing the heavens. Brahe made
his observations from Uraniborg, on an island in the sound between
Denmark and Sweden called Hveen. The instruments of Brahe allowed
him to determine more precisely than had been possible the detailed
motions of the planets. In particular, Brahe compiled extensive data on
the planet Mars, which would later prove crucial to Kepler in his
formulation of the laws of planetary motion because it would be
sufficiently precise to demonstrate that the orbit of Mars was not a circle
but an ellipse.

Summary of Brahe's Contributions

Among the important contributions of Brahe:

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1. He made the most precise observations that had yet been made by devising the
best instruments available before the invention of the telescope.
2. His observations of planetary motion, particularly that of Mars, provided the
crucial data for later astronomers like Kepler to construct our present model of
the solar system.
3. He made observations of a supernova (literally: nova= "new star") in 1572 (we
now know that a supernova is an exploding star, not a new star). This was a
"star" that appeared suddenly where none had been seen before, and was visible
for about 18 months before fading from view. Since this clearly represented a
change in the sky, prevailing opinion held that the supernova was not really a
star but some local phenomenon in the atmosphere (remember: the heavens
were supposed to be unchanging in the Aristotelian view). Brahe's meticulous
observations showed that the supernova did not change positions with respect to
the other stars (no parallax). Therefore, it was a real star, not a local object. This
was early evidence against the immutable nature of the heavens, although Brahe
did not interpret the absence of parallax for stars correctly, as we discuss below.
4. Brahe made careful observations of a comet in 1577. By measuring the parallax
for the comet, he was able to show that the comet was further away than the
Moon. This contradicted the teachings of Aristotle, who had held that comets
were atmospheric phenomena ("gases burning in the atmosphere" was a
common explanation among Aristotelians). As for the case of the supernova,
comets represented an obvious change in a celestial sphere that was supposed
to be unchanging; furthermore, it was very difficult to ascribe uniform circular
motion to a comet.
5. He made the best measurements that had yet been made in the search for stellar
parallax. Upon finding no parallax for the stars, he (correctly) concluded that
either the earth was motionless at the center of the Universe, or the stars were
so far away that their parallax was too small to measure. Not for the only time in
human thought, a great thinker formulated a pivotal question correctly, but then
made the wrong choice of possible answers: Brahe did not believe that the stars
could possibly be so far away and so concluded that the Earth was the center of
the Universe and that Copernicus was wrong.
6. Brahe proposed a model of the Solar System that was intermediate between the
Ptolemaic and Copernican models (it had the Earth at the center). It proved to be
incorrect, but was the most widely accepted model of the Solar System for a
time.

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Thus, Brahe's ideas about his data were not always correct, but the quality of the
observations themselves was central to the development of modern astronomy.

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Kepler's Laws

Johannes Kepler, working with data painstakingly collected by Tycho Brahe without the
aid of a telescope, developed three laws which described the motion of the planets
across the sky.
1. The Law of Orbits: All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun at one
focus.
2. The Law of Areas: A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps out
equal areas in equal times.
3. The Law of Periods: The square of the period of any planet is proportional
to the cube of the semimajor axis of its orbit.

Kepler's laws were derived for orbits around the sun, but they apply to satellite orbits as
well.

References and Resources ( Materials) Laptop, LCD projector, video


References/ Web links:
http://www.dsm.fordham.edu/~moniot/galileo_from_a_different_angle/node3.html
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/Unit3/greek.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/retrograde/copernican.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/brahe.html

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAJgUOx6NKw

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