Towards a new world Model

Magic vs Physics:

Magic: Nature appears mystical. We are simultaneously afraid and mystified by it, but it remains out side the realm of man. The Universe can act arbitrarily.
Physics: Nature is understandable (but not totally). Man is part of nature, not removed from it. Man lives in a rational Universe governed by cause and effect.

Historical Cosmological Models show a steady progression from those based on Magic/Myth to those based on Physics.

Remember these guys?

Aristotle and Plato

Aristotle stands in the Greek philosophical tradition which asserts that nature is understandable. This tradition, opposed to the idea that nature is under the control of capricious (MAGIC) deities which are to be appeased rather than understood, is one of the roots (PHYSICS) of science.

Okay, our task is to now remove the earth from the center of the Universe and come up with something more sensible because the model doesn't match the observations:

Elements of the Universe at this time (Aristotle):

Geocentric Cosmology
Stars and planets on perfect crystalline spheres
Universe is perfect and Changeless

Problems:

observed transient phenomena (comets, novae, variable stars) attributed to disturbances in the upper atmosphere of the earth
the brightness of the planets varied Aristotelian model makes a definite prediction all planets and stars should move in the same direction due to the initial action of the Prime Mover. But Mars was known at that time to sometimes move in the opposite direction for a brief period of time (retrograde motion)
Thus Ptolemy builds complicated machine to preserve the geocentric model and account for retrograde motion and explains the brightness variation of the planets (qualitatively but not quantitatively).
This model stood for 1500 years before anybody dared to modify it.

Cusa and Copernicus

Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (15th Century) used the Socratic Method "All I know is that I know nothing" and concluded that the mind can only understand things by relation - there are no "absolutes". In his book "On Learned Ingorance" several ideas emerge about the Universe:

Every direction is relative

The Universe has its center everywhere

The above two reasons mean there can be no UNIQUE place in the Universe

The Earth may not be stationary

Wherever one stood in the Universe, the same pattern of stars would be strewn out before them (homogeneity)

Thus for the first time we see the ideas of relativity, homogeneity and non-uniqueness expressed. The origin of original ideas are difficult to pin down. Often its the marketing that wins out! Our man Copernicus seems to have marketed the non-uniquess idea quite well:

Copernicus embraces the non-uniqueness idea and then asks why should the earth be at the center - lets put the SUN there

However, ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOS did think of this idea first.

Copernician Marketing Poster:

The New Idea of the Universe

This is the First Heliocentric Cosmology

This also gives a natural explanation for the observed retrograde motion that Ptolemy struggled with:

Also this explained the variation in brightness observed for Mars. But the model wasn't perfect. Copernicus, didn't understand how the larger brightness variations observed in Venus could be accounted for. That is, he did not understand that Venus would have phases:

Copernicus also did not know what to do with the stars and essentially left them fixed on some distant crystalline sphere. Copernicus also retains the Aristotelian notion of perfection and requires all the orbits of the planets (around the sun) to be perfectly circular. Within the accuracy of naked eye observations of the time, there was no way to clearly disprove this. In the end, his models still depended on epicycles:

In 1551 Erasmus Rheinhold (1511-1553) published the Prutenic Tables of planetary positions, which were based on the Copernican model and enjoyed quite a bit of success.

meaning that this model had good predictive power.

The most important aspect of Copernicus' work is that it forever changed the place of man in the cosmos - we were no longer in the center and therefore could no longer claim dominion over everything.

Goethe's Comment on Copernicus:
"Of all discoveries and opinions, none may have exerted a greater effect on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus. The world had scarcely become known as round and complete in itself when it was asked to waive the tremendous privilege of being the center of the universe. Never, perhaps, was a greater demand made on mankind - for by this admission so many things vanished in mist and smoke! What became of our Eden, our world of innocence, piety and poetry; the testimony of the senses; the conviction of a poetic - religious faith? No wonder his contemporaries did not wish to let all this go and offered every possible resistance to a doctrine which in its converts authorized and demanded a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown, indeed not even dreamed of."