• Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Copernicus deserves a mention. Galileo’s problems resulted (in part) from him being a proponent of Copernicism after the church had declared it heresy.

    Heliocentrism was suggested by Copernicus and Galileo built on that, including developing physics to the point where he couldn’t believe otherwise.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      The heliocentric models predicted the orbits worse than epicyclic geocentric ones and that is the reason Galileo was told to shut up, the court transcript is like 99% science and then a single subordinate clause saying “it also contradicts the bible”.

      Galileo insisted on circular orbits which was his downfall, ironically “because circles are perfect and god would furnish the universe perfect”: That kind of religious language while also being worse science than what was already established did him in. Kepler, based on Brahe’s data, was the first one to get a heliocentric model right and more accurate than the epicyclic ones.

      Also earth doesn’t revolve around the sun. If anything both revolve around their shared centre of gravity but really it’s a matter of your frame of reference. Paraphrasing Archimedes: Give me a fixed point in the universe and I will move all your models.