Copernican Revolution
The revolutionary changes in human understanding which occurred during the 18th century that followed the introduction of the heliocentric model of the solar system by the German-Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) in which the Sun (and not the Earth) is at the centre of our solar system.
"The Earth rotates on its own axis, thus creating the illusion that the heavens move. It is not the Sun that follows an oblique orbit around the Earth but rather the Earth's axis that is tilted as it follows its path around the Sun. The Earth is only one of several planets orbiting the Sun." This is the central message in Copernicus' work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) which was published in the year of his death. Copernicus' work not only physically moved the Earth from the centre of the solar system but created a new level of awareness that no longer placed humanity at the centre of the cosmos.
Copernicus had dedicated his book to Pope Paul III, who happened to have a keen interest in astrology. After 60 years of inactivity on Copernicus's book, the Catholic Church rejected his ideas when it became embroiled in the further astronomical findings of Galileo. The Church took the Bible literally, and the story of the sun standing still at the battle of Jericho, in the book of Joshua, as well as Job 26:7 and Psalms 19:4 and 93:1 were taken as irrefutable evidence for the old geocentric model. In 1616, the Church officially banned the books of Copernicus and Galileo Galilei. It was not until 1757 that Copernicus was rehabilitated, and the complete version of his book was not authorized until 1835. The founders of Protestantism, John Calvin and Martin Luther, equally condemned heliocentrism on biblical grounds.
In some of the more devout branches of Christianity and Islam adherents still reject the Copernican model on the grounds that it is incompatible with their religious scriptures.
Astrologers today, in contrast, accept the scientific model of the earth and planets rotating around the sun as a basic principle of astronomy. They use the older geocentric model in constructing horoscopes, however, on the grounds that astrology is based on the visual appearance of the heavens from an earth-based and person-centered perspective.
Weblinks
- Ptolemy and Copernicus on their cosmological postulates (Starry Messenger, 1999-2000)