Chris Dean’s Personal Website

As you probably now know, or have at least guessed by now, Copernicus published a revolutionary (excuse the pun) volume of six books in 1542 just before his death in May 1543.

The books contained a representation of the Universe that was both heretical and absurd to the people of the time – which was undoubtedly one of the reasons why Copernicus left the publication so late that he very nearly didn’t get to see a copy of his own book.

It paved the way for modern science as we now know it inspiring people such as Kepler and Newton to (be revolutionary) describe the universe around them based on the Copernican world view.

When Copernicus unleashed his ideas into the academic world he was shunned by various authorities, ridiculed by others and regarded as heretic by the church – as they all knew what the universe was made of and how it was worked! Although saying this, there were a few people, mostly mathematicians, who believed in his work and helped to continue and develop the modern scientific view of the universe.

In this talk I hope to outline some of the opposition to and arguments against the work of Copernicus and I hope you will see why the majority of people initially met his view of the universe with opposition.

At the time of Copernicus nearly everybody had already accepted the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of the universe as being real, which was probably for three main reasons:

1. This view of the universe had seemed to have been around forever and therefore was well grounded in both the eyes of the public and the academics, and it seemed to make fairly good sense of a rather tricky subject

1. Christianity, now one of the most prominent religions of the western world had accepted this view of the universe as conveniently true, and therefore would have exposed its followers, from the academic to the labourers, from birth until death, to it.

I.e. Christianity would have promoted the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of the universe.

1. Lastly, then present thinking would have also been based on the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of the universe, and any alteration to this view would possibly cause leading academics, religious figures and astrologers to be wrong – which was impossible of course!

Copernicus was aesthetically opposed to the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of the universe, as he believed God to be a very skilled and precise being, whose universe would be constructed elegantly and concisely. As a result the previous view of the universe appeared to be fundamentally flawed to him, which is probably one of the reasons why he went about constructing a ‘new’ universe in its place.

Copernicus was only too aware of the authorities view of the geocentric universe as being real, and anything opposing this to be unthinkable and absurd. But Copernicus believed in his view of the universe and hoped that he could relay his ideas based on geometry and trigonometry to other mathematicians at least, even if the majority of academics didn’t believe him at the time.

So all in all the majority of people would have been fundamentally opposed to the Copernican universal view and many critics tried to debunk his ideas by forcing him to explain away his ideas in an ‘acceptable’ manner. Copernicus even questions himself throughout his book, which leads people to believe that even he isn’t really completely convinced that his model is correct.

Some of these questions are as follows:

1. Why doesn’t the Earth disintegrate under its own rapid motion about its centre?

1. Why isn’t there a permanent wind from east to west as the Earth rotates, and why do the clouds and the air keep up with the Earth?
2. If the Earth rotates with circular motion, why do things just fall straight down and hit the ground rather than flying off at a tangent to the surface?

People and academics also had theological objections to his universe (which were probably more prominent than the physical objections at the time) some of these can be seen as extending their tentacles through the main objections to his view which are as follows:

1. The Status of the Earth is moved from being the point of all creation to just another planet in an almost infinitely large universe:

This was unacceptable to Christians as the Bible states, or at least implies, that God created the Earth and the universe for man, and that the universe is fixed and being watched over by God from outside. Everything has its rightful place, from the grass and the animals all the way up to (or out to, as the universe is a circle) God.

However, in the universe postulated by Copernicus, the Earth was no longer anything special and was seen as somewhat as insignificant when compared with everything else. This insignificance also implies somewhat the insignificance of man and removes the security offered by the implication that man is God’s own, special, personal creation, which he is constantly watching over.

Also in the previous model the Earth was said to be static in the centre of the universe. However Copernicus had it moving, but not just in one way, but in three (annual rotation, daily rotation, and pressional rotation i.e. the rotational motion of the Earth’s axis itself) – which made the overall picture of the Earth’s motion around the sun very complicated, inaccessible to the majority of people and therefore stupid or mad.

Additionally there was the problem of the motion of the moon i.e. the planets orbit the sun but the moon orbits the Earth. If Copernicus is right why should the Earth be the odd one out? The Earth overall isn’t special, but the again it is special, due to the motion of the moon, a very confusing and contradictory picture.

This proposed motion of the moon spoils the symmetry of the Copernican universe as compared with the previous model, which had all motions similar to one another, also there is the added problem of the moon keeping up with the apparently rotating Earth, how does it do it?

Also Copernicus’ Universe didn’t make sense, no-one has ever felt the motion of the Earth, and we can see that the heavens rotate about the Earth not vice versa – at least the previous universe seems real.

Also Copernicus’s Universe was not as simple as the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic. To fit in with observations he had to add more circles to the overall picture coupled with this is the fact that the centre of motion of the Earth wasn’t the sun if the orbits are circular so there is yet another thing wrong with his universe. And all in all, his universe was more complicated without being more accurate.

1. It was observed by some academics, (probably mathematicians), that if Copernicus is right there should be a parallax motion between the Earth and the stars. However, there doesn’t seem to be any, i.e. none has ever been observed.

   Therefore the stars must be a very long distance away, and also for us to be able to see them at that distance they must also be very large and very bright. Much larger than the distance of the Earth’s orbit around the sun for example. This means that the universe is much, much larger than was modelled by the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic universe and must mostly be empty space for the stars to be so far away, which further intensifies the argument that the Earth is insignificant.

   What’s more, it can be said to negate the presence of God to some extent; Or at least he is so far removed from the Earth as a whole, that he probably can’t have any effect on it, or keep a real watchful eye over it and therefore us as well.

1. Observations of retrograde planetary motion had apparently been recorded many times, and exist in the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model of the universe. Copernicus said that there was no retrograde motion and explained the observation away in terms of planetary orbits catching up on one another.

   The problem with this was the fact that it told people not to believe in what they saw before the eyes. Retrograde motion of the planets was something that, given enough time, the man on the street (or so to speak) could see for himself, and if you can see it then it must be true! Therefore the idea that no retrograde motion existed seemed ludicrous at first sight (another pun, sorry!!). Aside from this it would have belittled people and made them seem stupid. When it comes to things like this it’s usually the world that is right, and you that is wrong as not everyone could be that stupid – or could they….

   Also the periods of the planets are shown to increase with distance from the sun, which is expected, but they do not fit any series or pattern. Therefore, the Copernican universe also negates the ancient belief of the universe as a monochord and the harmony of the spheres. A belief that was still held to some extent in the 1600 ’s.

Lastly there is the problem of the apparent sizes of Venus and Mars:

If Copernicus calculated the orbits correctly then sometimes the Earth is close to Venus and distant from Mars, therefore their observed sizes and brightness’ from the Earth should differ by perspective effects, but no such change has ever been observed.

Therefore Copernicus ’s model doesn’t correspond to physical reality but neither did the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic. Also if Venus orbits the sun it should show phases like the moon does, but again none have been observed

Another problem is that the Earth is just meant to be like other planets, but the other planets don’t look like Earth, so why does the Earth appear different if it really isn’t? Also along with this is the slight possibility of life on other planets as the Earth is no different to the others!

In conclusion:

There were many different systems, why should Copernicus be right?

Overall, the Bible, common sense, Aristotle and the facts prove Copernicus wrong. But Copernicus didn’t expect his universe to be accepted by non-mathematicians – and he was correct, as most didn’t.

We now know much more about the nature of the universe and its constitution, via people such as Kepler and Newton and therefore the overall Copernican universe is now extinct. But the central idea (might as well end on a another pun!) of a heliocentric system remains, and is regarded as more or less true, at least for our immediate solar system.

During his time and long after it there was no single measurement that proved Copernicus’s system, as to do this would require us to leave the Earth. But his sound geometrical, mathematical and theoretical arguments were understood by and appealed to more and more people as time went on, and has now lead to much of 20th century physics which has finally allowed his original hypothesis to be proved correct.

At the time a critic of Copernicus, Montaigne, says that in principle it’s hard to tell if Copernicus or Ptolemy is correct. But Copernicus system is so revolutionary that it is as if he is a mad man, believing himself to be among the Gods by recreating the universe through his own eyes, with no commonsensical observations to back him up… At least no observations that are accessible to the man on the street. Only to mathematicians would his model of the universe seem real.

And after Copernicus, Tycho Brahe tried to adapt his view to make it more acceptable to people, crating a hybrid universe based mostly on Copernicus but with allowances to satisfy the non-believers.

There were so many things that went against Copernicus’s ideas that it’s really quite remarkable that his idea survived at all, but luckily it did and mob rule didn’t wipe him out altogether. It does make you wonder though, how many ‘crazy fanatics’ are just dismissed out of hand because we ‘know’ what is right and what isn’t!