Since ancient times, people have watched the starry sky with excitement, trying to unravel the mystery of the structure of the surrounding world. Today humanity knows a lot more about how the Universe works, what elements and objects it consists of. But ancient ideas about the universe were significantly different from modern scientific views.
Ancient Greeks
Imagined the Earth is flat. For example, the ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who lived in the 6th century BC, held this opinion as a flat disk surrounded by a sea inaccessible to man, from which they emerge every evening and into which stars set every morning. Every morning the sun god Helios (later identified with Apollo) rose from the eastern sea in a golden chariot and made his way across the sky.
Egypt
The world in the mind of the ancient Egyptians: below - the Earth, above it - the goddess of the sky; left and right - the ship of the sun god, showing the path of the sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.
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India
The ancient Indians envisioned the Earth as a hemisphere supported by four elephants. The elephants stood on top of a huge turtle that swam in the sea of milk. All these animals were wrapped in rings by the black cobra Sheshu, and its thousands of heads propped up the Universe.
Babylon. Today's Iraq … in those parts
The inhabitants of Babylon imagined the Earth as a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia is located. They knew that there was a sea to the south of Babylon, and mountains to the east, which they did not dare to cross. Therefore, it seemed to them that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the "world" mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the solid sky - the heavenly world, where, as on Earth, there is land, water and air. Heavenly dry land is the belt of 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. In each of the constellations, the Sun is annually for about a month. The Sun, Moon and five planets move along this belt of land. There is an abyss under the Earth - hell, where the souls of the dead descend. At night, the Sun passes through this dungeon from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern,so that in the morning you can start your daytime journey across the sky again. Watching the setting of the Sun over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and also rises from the sea. Thus, observations of natural phenomena were at the heart of the ideas of the ancient Babylonians about the Earth, but the limited knowledge did not allow them to be correctly explained.
Greeks
The famous ancient Greek scientist Aristotle (IV century BC) was the first to use observations of lunar eclipses to prove the sphericity of the Earth. Before him, by the way, Pythagoras of Samos put forward this theory (in the VI century BC)
Here are three facts:
* the shadow from the Earth falling on the full moon is always round. During eclipses, the Earth is turned to the Moon in different directions. But only the ball always casts a round shadow.
** Ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to the far distance, but almost instantly, as it were, "sink", disappearing behind the horizon.
*** some stars can be seen only from certain parts of the Earth, while for other observers they are never visible.
Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD) - ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, optician, music theorist and geographer. In the period from 127 to 151 he lived in Alexandria, where he conducted astronomical observations. He continued the teachings of Aristotle regarding the sphericity of the Earth.
He created his own geocentric system of the universe and taught that all celestial bodies move around the Earth in an empty world space.
Subsequently, the Christian Church recognized Ptolemy's system.
Finally, the outstanding astronomer of the ancient world, Aristarchus of Samos (late 4th - first half of the 3rd century BC), expressed the idea that it is not the Sun and the planets that move around the Earth, but the Earth and all the planets revolve around the Sun. However, he had very little evidence at his disposal.
And it took another 1700 years before the Polish scientist Copernicus managed to prove it.
Copernicus
His hypotheses refuted the theory of the ancient Greek scientist Ptolemy, which had existed for almost 1500 years. According to this theory, the Earth was motionless at the center of the Universe, and all the planets, including the Sun, revolved around it.
Although the teachings of Ptolemy could not explain many astronomical phenomena, the church for many centuries maintained the inviolability of this theory, because it was quite suitable for her. But Copernicus could not be content with hypotheses alone, he needed more weighty arguments, but it was very difficult to prove the correctness of his theory in practice at that time: there were no telescopes, and astronomical instruments were primitive. The scientist, observing the firmament, made conclusions about the incorrectness of Ptolemy's theory, and with the help of mathematical calculations convincingly proved that all the planets, including the Earth, revolve around the Sun.
The church could not accept Copernicus' teachings, because it destroyed the theory of the divine origin of the universe. The result of his 40 years of research Nicolaus Copernicus presented in the work "On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres", which, thanks to the efforts of his student Joachim Rethick and like-minded Tiedemann Giese, was published in Nuremberg in May 1543.
The scientist himself at that time was already sick: he suffered a stroke, as a result of which the right half of the body was paralyzed. On May 24, 1543, after another hemorrhage, the great Polish scientist-astronomer died. They say that already on his deathbed, Copernicus still managed to see his book printed.
In general: But still it turns!
Italian. Galileo Galilei, complete: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonauti de Galilei
Creates his tube and calls it a telescope! Copied, by the way, from the Dutch. It seems that the invention did not help them, unlike Vincenzo, or they did not have enough brains).
After careful measurements and calculations, Galileo's telescope turns out to be incredibly accurate (for those times), but it also allows Galileo to make a lot of discoveries.
Galileo made the very first discovery after a detailed study of the lunar surface. He not only proved, but also described in detail the mountains that are on the surface of the moon.
Galileo's second discovery was the Milky Way. The scientist proved that it consists of a cluster of many stars. In addition to such a cluster of stars, the scientist suggested that there are other galaxies in the world that can be located in different planes of the vast Universe.
The third most weighty and significant discovery was the 4 moons of Jupiter.
With his observations, Galileo simply and accurately proved that any cosmic body can revolve around other celestial bodies and not only around the Earth. The great astronomer examined and described in detail the spots on the Sun, of course, other people saw them, but no one was able to describe them in a decent and correct way, until Galileo Galilei did it.
In addition to observing the moon, Galileo also revealed the phases of the planet Venus to the world. In his writings, he compared the phases of Venus with the phases of the moon. All such important and weighty observations boiled down to the fact that the Earth, together with other planets of our galaxy, revolves around the Sun.
Galileo described all his observations and discoveries in a scientific book called "Star Messenger". It was after reading this book and the discoveries made by Galileo that almost all monarchs in Europe demanded to purchase a telescope. The scientist himself presented several of his inventions to his patrons.
Of course, compared to today's Hubble telescopes, Galileo's telescope looks uncomplicated and simple. If you think about the fact that such a primitive device has allowed one person to make a huge number of discoveries, it becomes clear that no matter which device a person has is supernova or old - the main thing is that the person looking into it has an extraordinary mind.
By the way, they burned Giordano Bruno. Such an irony …