St. Charles - Hon. Physics - Astronomers

Eratosthenes

Calculated the circumference of the Earth and assumed rays from a very large sun, very far from a very small earth would occur parallel to one another

Tycho Brahe

A great observational astronomer, but a very poor theorist and got his nose cut off in a sword fight over who was the best mathematician

Johannes Kepler

Derived the laws of planetary motion and, using the orbit of Mars, decided plants orbited in ellipses, not circles

Isaac Newton

Derived 3 laws of motion and a gravitational constant

Aristarchos

Observations of lunar eclipses led to the suggestion of a heliocentric universe and his heliocentric ideas were dismissed as the rambling words of an otherwise harmless old man

Nicholas Copernicus

Dedicated his work to Pope Paul III and devised a complicated, comparatively inaccurate heliocentric model of the universe

Galileo Galilei

Discovered 4 moons orbiting Jupiter and taught both heliocentric and geocentric theories at the University in Padua

Martin Luther

Said belief in a heliocentric universe was heresy

Claudius Ptolemy

Wrote the Almagest, a very accurate but complicated geocentric model and devised a geocentric model of the universe that allowed sailors to successfully navigate the seas for over 1500 years