The ideas and discoveries about
Earth
Hipparchus 190 – 120 BC
Claudius Ptolemy 85 – 165 AD
Nicolas Copernicus 1473 – 1543
Tycho Brahe 1546 – 1601
Sir Isaac Newton1642 – 1727
Edmund Halley 1656 – 1742
Caroline Herschel 1750 – 1848
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
Johannes Kepler 1571 – 1630
Galileo Galilei 1564 – 1642
Edwin Hubble 1889 – 1953
Sir William Herschel 1738 – 1822
Timeline of Ideas10
00 B
C
2000
AD
0
Nicolas CopernicusSuggests that the sun is at the centre of the
Solar System.(1543 AD)
AristotleHe suggests that the Earth is at the centre of the solar
system.(approx. 340 BC)
PtolemyHe suggests the idea of
epicycles to suggest how planets move.
The Earth is still at the centre of the Solar
System.(approx. 150 BC)
AristarchusHe suggests the
idea of the Sun at the centre of the
Solar System.(approx. 200 BC)
Johannes KeplerHe suggests three laws of planetary motion and that
orbits are ellipses and not circles.
(1600 AD)
GalileoMade major advances in telescope design.
(1594 AD)
Isaac NewtonSuggested the idea
of planetary gravity.
(1700 AD)
William Herschel
Discovered Uranus
(1781 AD)
Edwin HubbleDiscovered that the universe is
expanding.(1929 AD)
Galileo Galilei Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopherHe improved the telescope and consequent astronomical observations.He was named the ‘father of modern observational astronomy’, ‘father of physics’, ‘father of science’ and ‘father of modern science’.
Galileo Galilei (cont.)
Galileo was able to use this telescope to prove the truth of the Copernican system of heliocentrism. He published his observations which went against the teaching of the Church. He was brought to trial and was imprisoned for life. Other scientists seized its importance and could learn more the world.He was the first person to identify Sunspots and to see the 4 brightest moons of Jupiter. He also noticed that our view of Venus changes in the same way as that of our Moon.
CopernicusNicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer.
He came up with the heliocentric system where the Sun was at the center in 1508.
Earlier starwatchers had believed the same, but he brought it to the world of and used his own observations to back up his idea.
His ideas, including the revelation that the Earth rotates on its axis, were too different for most of the scholars of his time to accept.
In 1512, he recorded a basic sketch of his system in a manuscript called Commentariolus
Isaac NewtonSir Isaac Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian.He had described universal gravitation and the three laws of motionHe built the first practical reflecting telescope
Henrietta Swan Leavitt
Henrietta Swan Leavitt was an American astronomer. Leavitt discovered the relation between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variable stars. Her discovery allowed astronomers to measure the distance between the Earth and faraway galaxies. Edwin Hubble used the luminosity-period relation for Cepheids to determine that the Universe is expanding.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was an Indian-American astrophysicist.He won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars.Chandrasekhar worked in various areas including stellar structure, theory of white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, theory of radiative transfer, quantum theory of the negative ion of Hydrogen, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity, mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves.
Stephen HawkingStephen William Hawking, is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. His significant scientific works are gravitational singularities theorems and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. He thinks that we may be able to leave earth, aliens exist and that time travel is possible.
Hawking has achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; his A Brief History of Time stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.
He is almost entirely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device.
Professor Michael Robinson and Dr
Brian MayThey modelled the space dust in the solar system.It explains the infrared radiation from zodiacal dust seen
Quiz!Who was Galilio Galilei?What is Nicolas Copernicus famous for? What did Isaac Newton invent?Edwin Hubble used the theory of which scientist to determine that the Universe is expanding?Who was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar?What did Stephen Hawking predict?What did Professor Michael Robinson and Dr Brian May do?