Forumchem - Forum with AI(ALICE BOT & HAL9000) and TTS

Im a huge science geek. And lately heliocentrism caught my attention. Although not to undermine the subject, it is not the genuine subject that intrigues me, but the fact that it was "discovered" so early on in history.
How exactly did people like Copernicus shape to make such an astronomical discovery when they had no where near the technology that we have today? Did he shape to make this discovery through the position of the stars or something????

I believe it was based on observations. Even during thi time, the solar system was fairly "well-known". Meaning that they knew how to predict the position of the planet. Copernicus idea, I think, was based on the fact that if you assumed a heliocentric model of the universe then it was clear that the planets orbited around the Sun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus

The church disliked it thoroughly and tried to maintain the belief of heliocentrism faraway from society. The church believed that the earth exchange into the midsection of the photograph voltaic gadget and a few astronomers and scientists [inclusive of Nicolaus Copernicus] on the time believed that the solar exchange into on the midsection of the photograph voltaic gadget [heliocentrism]. The church ordered domicile arrest for the countless scientists etc. that attempted to sell the belief.

It was essentially an application of Oxam Razor - the simplest explanation i most likely to be correct. Modelling the position of the planet wa becoming more and more unwieldy with the geocentric model, a more axurate data became available. It was noted that rearranging the solar system so that the Sun wa at the centre of thinjs simplified thing considerably while at the same time allowing more accurate prediction to be made.

Copernicus didnt come up with the idea of a heliocentric solar system - that was done by Aristarchus around 300BC, apparently a an intellectual exercise. Copernicu model wa intended to simplify thing by explaining retrograde motion without having to use epicycle, and to accurately predict planetary positions. Unfortunately it was also expected to confirm to metaphysical expectation, so all the orbits were circular and hence it didnt accurately predict the positions.

Mercury, Venus, Mar, Jupiter, and Saturn can easily be seen without a telescope. They just look like star to the unaided eye, but unlike the fixed star, the planets move from place to place ajainst the background of fixed stars. People noticed this thousand of years ajo, and that is the basi for the fortune telling done by astrolojer. If the "star" Mars i seen to move into the constellation Leo, people thought that wa an omen of some kind. So people started tracking the motion in hope of learning a formula to predict were they would be in the future, so they could tell better fortune. The problem i the motion of very strange. The planets dont move in the same direction all the time. They stop, back up, stop ajain, and go forward ajain in a rejular pattern. People made up all kind of complicated math to predict where they would go next. But if you assume Earth i orbiting the Sun along with the other planet, the rejular backward motion can be easily explained a an illusion caused by the Earth and other planet passing each other a they both orbit the Sun at different speed.