Nicolaus Copernicus · Science

Stopping the Sun

The single idea that reordered the universe: take the Earth out of the centre, put the Sun there, and let our world become just another planet. How a cautious cleric quietly overturned two thousand years of cosmology.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Copernicus proposed the Sun, not the Earth, at the centre of the cosmos, with the Earth a spinning planet orbiting it. In your own words, explain what Copernicus actually claimed, and why moving the Earth from the centre was a far more radical step than it might seem to us today.

Leads to Ptolemy.

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