Early Models of the

Universe
 Pythagoreans (500 B.C.)
 Believed the stars, planets, sun,
and moon were attached to
crystalline spheres which rotated
around the Earth.
 Geocentric- everything moved
around the Earth.
 Aristotle (350 B.C.)
 Believed the Earth is motionless
at the center of the universe and
all the stars and planets revolved
around it.
 Stars and planets moved in
circular paths.
 Geocentric
 Ptolemy (140 A.D.)
 Expanded Aristotle’s theories to try to
account for “retrograde motion” of the
planets
 Planets traveled in smaller circular paths
as they traveled around the Earth
(epicycles and deferents) Geocentric
 Popular model of the universe for 1,500
years.
 Copernicus (1543)
 Sun at the center of universe and the
planets orbit the sun. Heliocentric.
 Solved the problem of “retrograde motion”

 Theory did not immediately replace

Ptolemy’s theory.
 Tycho Brahe (1600)
 Favored an Earth-centered universe
different from Ptolemy’s theory.
 Thought that other planets revolved
around the Sun, and that the sun and
moon revolved around Earth.
 His theory was incorrect, but made many
precise observations of planets and stars.
 Geocentric
 Johannes Kepler (1609)
 Mathematician
 Tycho’s assistant
 Used Tycho’s observational data to
develop laws of planetary motion.
 Kepler’s 3 Laws of Planetary Motion
 Law of Ellipses
 Law of Equal Areas
 Law of Periods
 Galileo Galilei (1609)
 First person to use telescope for
astronomical observations
 Discoveries:
 Galilean Satellites (Jupiter’s moons)
 Craters on the moon
 Sunspots on the Sun
 Phases of Venus
 Favored Copernicus’s theory over Ptolemy’s
 Isaac Newton
 1687
 Explained why planets orbit the Sun, and
why moons orbit planets.
 Newton’s Law of Motion
 Newton’s Law of Gravitation
 Completed the work of Copernicus, Tycho,
Kepler, and Galileo