The Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve

as executive producers on the show, along with Steven Molaro. All three also serve as head writers. It premiered on CBS on September 24, 2007.[3]

The show is centered on five characters: roommates Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper, two physicists employed at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech); Penny, a waitress and aspiring actress who lives across the hall; and Leonard and Sheldon's equally geeky and socially awkward friends and co-workers, aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Rajesh Koothrappali. The geekiness and intellect of the four guys is contrasted for comic effect with Penny's social skills and common sense.[4][5] Over time supporting characters have been promoted to starring roles: Leslie Winkle, a physicist colleague at Caltech and, at different times, a lover of both Leonard and Howard; Bernadette Rostenkowski, Howard's fiance and subsequent wife, a microbiologist and former part-time waitress alongside Penny; and neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler, who joins the group after surreptitiously being matched to Sheldon on a dating website. Bernadette and Amy became prominent characters after Penny and Leonard stopped dating.

Steady State Theory: In cosmology, the stt (also known as the Infinite Universe theory or continuous creation) is a model developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi and others as an alternative to the Big Bang theory (the standard cosmological model). In steady state views, new matter is continuously created as the universe expands, so that the perfect cosmological principle is adhered to. The steady state theory of Bondi and Gold was inspired by the circular plot of the film Dead of Night[1], which they had watched together. Theoretical calculations showed that a static universe was impossible under general relativity, and observations by Edwin Hubble had shown that the universe was expanding. The steady state theory asserts that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not change its appearance over time (the perfect cosmological principle); it has no beginning and no end. The steady state model is now largely discredited, as the observational evidence points to a Big Bang-type cosmology and a finite age of the universe.

History
Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the universe was in fact changing: quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (therefore existing only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be found everywhere, including close to our own galaxy. For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, which was predicted by the Big Bang theory. Stephen Hawking said that the fact that microwave radiation had been found, and that it was thought to be left over from the Big Bang, was "the final nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory." Within the steady state theory this background radiation is the result of light from ancient stars which has been scattered by galactic dust. However, this explanation has been unconvincing to most cosmologists as the cosmic microwave background is very smooth, making it difficult to explain how it arose from point sources, and the microwave background shows no evidence of features such as polarization which are normally associated with scattering. Furthermore, its spectrum is so close to that of an ideal black body that it could hardly be formed by the superposition of contributions from dust clumps at different temperatures as well as at different redshifts. Steven Weinberg wrote in 1972, The steady state model does not appear to agree with the observed dL versus z relation or with source counts ... In a sense, the disagreement is a credit to the model; alone among all cosmologies, the steady state model makes such definite predictions that it can be disproved even with the limited observational evidence at our disposal. The steadystate model is so attractive that many of its adherents still retain hope that the evidence against it will disappear as observations improve. However, if the cosmic microwave background radiation ... is really black-body radiation, it will be difficult to doubt that the universe has evolved from a hotter, denser early stage.[2]

Since that time, the Big Bang theory has been considered to be the best description of the origin of the universe. In most astrophysical publications, the Big Bang is implicitly accepted and is used as the basis of more complete theories.

Pulsating Theory
According to this theory, the universe is supposed to be expanding and contracting alternately i.e. pulsating. At present, the universe is expanding. According to pulsating theory, it is possible that at a certain time, the expansion of the universe may be stopped by the gravitational pull and the may contract again. After it has been contracted to a certain size, explosion again occurs and the universe will start expanding. The alternate expansion and contraction of the universe give rise to pulsating universe. - a theory that explains the peculiar features of such stars as the Cepheid variables by assuming an expansion and contraction of the star as a whole in a regular periodic pulsation Very briefly, the Pulsating Theory says that the universe was created at the time of the big bang and is a t present expanding. Eventually, due to gravity that expansion will stop and reverse, the universe will then end in a big 'crunch' and everything will start again with another big bang. The Steady Theory says that matter is continually being created everywhere and the universe will continue to grow with no apparent visible change.

Aristotle (Ancient Greek: , Aristotls) (384 BC 322 BC)[1] was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a
student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics. Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"),[2] it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.[3] Like early astronomers from around the world, the ancient Greeks struggled to understand the universe. Thales, often called the father of Greek science and mathematics, asked questions about the universe that were not based on the actions of gods or demons. It is said that Thales provided the bridge between the world of myth and the world of reason. He used the astronomical records of the Babylonians and Egyptians to accurately predict a solar eclipse in the sixth century BC. Thales believed the Earth was flat and floated on water like a log.

Aristotle was born in Stagira in north Greece, the son of Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained first in medicine, and then in 367 he was sent to Athens to study philosophy with Plato. He stayed at Plato's Academy until about 347 -- the picture at the top of this page, taken from Raphael's fresco The School of Athens, shows Aristotle and Plato (Aristotle is on the. right). Though a brilliant pupil, Aristotle opposed some of Plato's teachings, and when Plato died, Aristotle was not appointed head of the Academy. After leaving Athens, Aristotle spent some time traveling, and possibly studying biology, in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and its islands. He returned to Macedonia in 338 to tutor Alexander the Great; after Alexander conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his own, known as the Lyceum. After Alexander's death, Athens rebelled against Macedonian rule, and Aristotle's political situation became precarious. To avoid being put to death, he fled to the island of Euboea, where he died soon after. Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises. The 30 that survive touch on an enormous range of philosophical problems, from biology and physics to morals to aesthetics to politics. Many, however, are thought to be "lecture notes" instead of complete, polished treatises, and a few may not be the work of Aristotle but of members of his school. A full description of Aristotle's contributons to science and philosophy is beyond the scope of this exhibit, but a brief summary can be made: Whereas Aristotle's teacher Plato had located ultimate reality in Ideas or eternal forms, knowable only through reflection and reason, Aristotle saw ultimate reality in physical objects, knowable through experience. Objects, including organisms, were composed of a potential, their matter, and of a reality, their form; thus, a block of marble -- matter -- has the potential to assume whatever form a sculptor gives it, and a seed or embryo has the potential to grow into a living plant or animal form. In living creatures, the form was identified with the soul; plants had the lowest kinds of souls, animals had higher souls which could feel, and humans alone had rational, reasoning souls. In turn, animals could be classified by their way of life, their actions, or, most importantly, by their parts. Though Aristotle's work in zoology was not without errors, it was the grandest biological synthesis of the time, and remained the ultimate authority for many centuries after his death. His observations on the anatomy of octopus, cuttlefish, crustaceans, and many other marine invertebrates are remarkably accurate, and could only have been made from firsthand experience with dissection. Aristotle described the embryological development of a chick; he distinguished whales and dolphins from fish; he described the chambered stomachs of ruminants and the social organization of bees; he noticed that some sharks give birth to live young -- his books on animals are filled with such observations, some of which were not confirmed until many centuries later. Aristotle's thoughts on earth sciences can be found in his treatise Meteorology -- the word today means the study of weather, but Aristotle used the word in a much broader sense, covering, as he put it, "all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts." Here he discusses the nature of the earth and the oceans. He worked out the hydrologic cycle: "Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth." He discusses winds, earthquakes (which he thought were caused by underground winds), thunder, lightning, rainbows, and meteors, comets, and the Milky Way (which he thought were atmospheric phenomena). His model of Earth history contains some remarkably modern-sounding ideas: The same parts of the earth are not always moist or dry, but they change according as rivers come into existence and dry up. And so the relation of land to sea changes too and a place does not always remain land or sea throughout all time, but where there was dry land there comes to be sea, and where there is now sea, there one day comes to be dry land. But we must suppose these changes to follow some order and cycle. The principle and cause of these changes is that the interior of the earth grows and decays, like the bodies of plants and animals. . . . But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed.

Where Aristotle differed most sharply from medieval and modern thinkers was in his belief that the universe had never had a beginning and would never end; it was eternal. Change, to Aristotle, was cyclical: water, for instance, might evaporate from the sea and rain down again, and rivers might come into existence and then perish, but overall conditions would never change. In the later Middle Ages, Aristotle's work was rediscovered and enthusiastically adopted by medieval scholars. His followers called him Ille Philosophus (The Philosopher), or "the master of them that know," and many accepted every word of his writings -- or at least every word that did not contradict the Bible -- as eternal truth. Fused and reconciled with Christian doctrine into a philosophical system known as Scholasticism, Aristotelian philosophy became the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, some scientific discoveries in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were criticized simply because they were not found in Aristotle. It is one of the ironies of the history of science that Aristotle's writings, which in many cases were based on first-hand observation, were used to impede observational science.

Aristotle, who lived from 384 to 322 BC, believed the Earth was round. He thought Earth was the center of the universe
and that the Sun, Moon, planets, and all the fixed stars revolved around it. Aristotle's ideas were widely accepted by the Greeks of his time. The exception, a century later, was Aristarchus, one of the earliest believers in a heliocentric or suncentered universe. In the 100s BC, Hipparchus, the most important Greek astronomer of his time, calculated the comparative brightness of as many as 1,000 different stars. He also calculated the Moon's distance from the Earth. Aristotle

died from an unidentified stomach illness

Aristarchus of Samos was a Greek astronomer and mathematician who lived from
approximately 310BC through approximately 250BC. Although he was occasionally written about by early scientists and philosophers, especially Archimedes, very little is known about his life. He was a student of Strato of Lampsacus, head of Aristotle's Lyceum. These studies apparently did not take place in Athens, but rather during the time when Strato was head of the Lyceum at Alexandria. This was probably shortly after he took over in 287 BC. Aristarchus is best known for two things, his belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun and his work attempting to determine the sizes and distances of the sun and moon. Although he wrote many volumes of commentary and analyses, his only surviving work,

"On the Dimensions and Distances of the Sun and Moon," does not provide any insight into his heliocentric view of the universe. While the method he describes in it for obtaining the sizes and distances of the sun and moon are basically correct, his final estimates were wrong more due to a lack of accurate instruments and an inadequate knowledge of mathematics than to his methods. It is said that Nicolaus Copernicus, himself, at first credited Aristarchus in his treatise, "De revolutionibus caelestibus," In it he wrote, "Philolaus believed in the mobility of the earth, and some even say that Aristarchus of Samos was of that opinion." This line was crossed out prior to its publication. As with his birth and life, little is known of his death. A crater on the moon is named for him, in its center is a peak which is the brightest formation on the Moon. Aristarchus thus believed the stars to be very far away, and that in consequence there was no observable parallax, that is, a movement of the stars relative to each other as the Earth moves around the Sun. The stars are much farther away than was generally assumed in ancient times; and since stellar parallax is only detectable with telescopes, his speculation although accurate was unprovable at the time. The geocentric model was consistent with planetary parallax and was assumed to be the reason why no stellar parallax was observed. Rejection of the heliocentric view was common, as the following passage from Plutarch suggests (On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon): Aristarchus (, Aristarkhos, 310 BC ca. 230 BC) of Samos was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it (see Solar system). He was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but he identified the "central fire" with the Sun, and put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun.[1] His astronomical ideas were often rejected in favor of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Aristarchus of Samos died in 230 BC.

He was 79 years old when he died. He died there in 322 of a disease of the digestive organs.

AKA Claudius Ptolemaeus Born: c. 87 AD Birthplace: Alexandria, Egypt Died: c. 150 AD Location of death: Alexandria, Egypt Cause of death: unspecified Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: White Occupation: Astronomer, Cartographer, Mathematician Nationality: Ancient Rome Executive summary: Egyptian geographer and astronomer. Ptolemy (aka Claudius Ptolemaeus, Ptolomaeus, Klaudios Ptolemaios, Ptolemeus) lived in
Alexandria, Egypt and has an important role in the history of astronomy and geography. We know very little of Ptolemy's life, including his birth and death dates. Various sources report different years, however, the first observation made by him which we can date exactly was on 26 March 127 while the last was on 2 February 141. Some experts believe his life spanned the years 87 150. During his lifetime, he did much to advance the sciences of astronomy and geography. The Ptolemy project studies modeling, simulation, and design of concurrent, real-time, embedded systems. The focus is on assembly of concurrent components. The key underlying principle in the project is the use of well-defined models of computation that govern the interaction between components. A major problem area being addressed is the use of heterogeneous mixtures of models of computation. A software system called Ptolemy II is being constructed in Java. The work is conducted in the Center for Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems (CHESS) in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences of the University of California at Berkeley . The project is directed by Prof. Edward Lee. The project is named after Claudius Ptolemaeus, the second century Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer. One of the most influential Greek astronomers and geographers of his time, Ptolemy propounded the geocentric theory in a form that prevailed for 1400 years. However, of all the ancient Greek mathematicians, it is fair to say that his work has generated more discussion and argument than any other. We shall discuss the arguments below for, depending on which are correct, they portray Ptolemy in very different lights. The arguments of some historians show that Ptolemy was a mathematician of the very top rank, arguments of others show that he was no more than a superb expositor, but far worse, some even claim that he committed a crime against his fellow scientists by betraying the ethics and integrity of his profession. We know very little of Ptolemy's life. He made astronomical observations from Alexandria in Egypt during the years AD 127-41. In fact the first observation which we can date exactly was made by Ptolemy on 26 March 127 while the last was made on 2 February 141. It was claimed by Theodore Meliteniotes in around 1360 that Ptolemy was born in Hermiou (which is in Upper Egypt rather than Lower Egypt where Alexandria is situated) but since this claim first appears more than one thousand years after Ptolemy lived, it must be treated as relatively unlikely to be true. In fact there is no evidence that Ptolemy was ever anywhere other than Alexandria. His name, Claudius Ptolemy, is of course a mixture of the Greek Egyptian 'Ptolemy' and the Roman 'Claudius'. This would indicate that he was descended from a Greek family living in Egypt and that he was a citizen of Rome, which would be as a result of a Roman emperor giving that 'reward' to one of Ptolemy's ancestors. We do know that Ptolemy used observations made by 'Theon the mathematician', and this was almost certainly Theon of Smyrna who almost certainly was his teacher. Certainly this would make sense since Theon was both an observer and a mathematician who had written on astronomical topics such as conjunctions, eclipses, occultations and transits. Most of Ptolemy's early works are dedicated to Syrus who may have also been one of his teachers in Alexandria, but nothing is known of Syrus.

If these facts about Ptolemy's teachers are correct then certainly in Theon he did not have a great scholar, for Theon seems not to have understood in any depth the astronomical work he describes. On the other hand Alexandria had a tradition for scholarship which would mean that even if Ptolemy did not have access to the best teachers, he would have access to the libraries where he would have found the valuable reference material of which he made good use. Ptolemy's major works have survived and we shall discuss them in this article. The most important, however, is the Almagest which is a treatise in thirteen books. We should say straight away that, although the work is now almost always known as the Almagest that was not its original name. Its original Greek title translates as The Mathematical Compilation but this title was soon replaced by another Greek title which means The Greatest Compilation. This was translated into Arabic as "al-majisti" and from this the title Almagest was given to the work when it was translated from Arabic to Latin. The first to make accusations against Ptolemy was Tycho Brahe. He discovered that there was a systematic error of one degree in the longitudes of the stars in the star catalogue, and he claimed that, despite Ptolemy saying that it represented his own observations, it was merely a conversion of a catalogue due to Hipparchus corrected for precession to Ptolemy's date. There is of course definite problems comparing two star catalogues, one of which we have a copy of while the other is lost. After comments by Laplace and Lalande, the next to attack Ptolemy vigorously was Delambre. He suggested that perhaps the errors came from Hipparchus and that Ptolemy might have done nothing more serious than to have failed to correct Hipparchus's data for the time between the equinoxes and solstices. However Delambre then goes on to say.

Nicola(u)s Copernicus (Mikolaj Kopernik) was born in Poland in 1473. His parents died when he was twelve, and he was entrusted to his uncle (soon to be the Bishop of Ermland), who sent him to the University of Cracow (astronomy) and then to Bologna (Greek, mathematics, Plato) and Padua (law and medicine) and Ferrara (Doctor of Canon Law). Having been elected a canon of Frauenberg Cathedral, he returned home, assisted his uncle until the uncle's death, and then opened a free clinic for the poor. Nicolaus Copernicus is the Latin version of the famous astronomer's name which he chose later in his life. The original form of his name was Mikolaj Kopernik or Nicolaus Koppernigk but we shall use Copernicus throughout this article. His father, also called Nicolaus Koppernigk, had lived in Krakw before moving to Torun where he set up a business trading in copper. He was also interested in local politics and became a civic leader in Torun and a magistrate. Nicolaus Koppernigk married Barbara Watzenrode, who came from a well off family from Torun, in about 1463. They moved into a house in St Anne's Street in Torun, but they also had a summer residence with vineyards out of town. Nicolaus and Barbara Koppernigk had four children, two sons and two daughters, of whom Nicolaus Copernicus was the youngest. Nicolaus Copernicus (German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Italian: Nicol Copernico; Polish: Mikoaj

Kopernik (helpinfo); in his youth, Niclas Koppernigk;[1] 19 February 1473 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.[2] Copernicus' epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), published just before his death in 1543, is often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the scientific revolution. His heliocentric model, with the Sun at the center of the universe, demonstrated that the observed motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting Earth at rest in the center of the universe. His work stimulated further scientific investigations, becoming a landmark in the history of science that is often referred to as the Copernican Revolution. Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, jurist with a doctorate in law, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classics scholar, translator, artist,[3] Catholic cleric, governor, diplomat and economist. Copernicus' uncle Watzenrode maintained contacts with the leading intellectual figures in Poland and was a friend of the influential Italian-born humanist and Krakw courtier, Filippo Buonaccorsi.[48] Watzenrode seems first to have sent young Copernicus to the St. John's School at Thorn where he himself had been a master. Later, according to Armitage (some scholars differ), the boy attended the Cathedral School at Leslau, up the Vistula River from Thorn, which prepared pupils for entrance to the University of Krakw, Watzenrode's alma mater in Poland's capital.[49] In the winter semester of 149192 Copernicus, as "Nicolaus Nicolai de Thuronia," matriculated together with his brother Andrew at the University of Krakw (now Jagiellonian University). Copernicus began his studies in the Department of Arts (from the fall of 1491, presumably until the summer or fall of 1495) in the heyday of the Krakw astronomical-mathematical school, acquiring the foundations for his subsequent mathematical achievements. According to a later but credible tradition (Jan Broek), Copernicus was a pupil of Albert Brudzewski, who by then (from 1491) was a professor of Aristotelian philosophy but taught astronomy privately outside the university; Copernicus became familiar with Broek's widely read commentary to Georg von Peuerbach's Theoric nov

planetarum and almost certainly attended the lectures of Bernard of Biskupie and Wojciech Krypa of Szamotuy and probably other astronomical lectures by Jan of Gogw, Michael of Wrocaw (Breslau), Wojciech of Pniewy and Marcin Bylica of Olkusz.[50] Copernicus' Krakw studies gave him a thorough grounding in the mathematical-astronomical knowledge taught at the university (arithmetic, geometry, geometric optics, cosmography, theoretical and computational astronomy), a good knowledge of the philosophical and natural-science writings of Aristotle (De coelo, Metaphysics) and Averroes (which later would play an important role in shaping his theory), stimulated his interest in learning, and made him conversant with humanistic culture. Copernicus broadened the knowledge that he took from the university lecture halls with independent reading of books that he acquired during his Krakw years (Euclid, Haly Abenragel, the Alfonsine Tables, Johannes Regiomontanus' Tabulae directionum) The best information I have found is that Copernicus was a canon but never became a priest.

Work
Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God, by Matejko. In background: Frombork Cathedral. Having completed all his studies in Italy, 30-year-old Copernicus returned to Warmia, where apart from brief journeys to Krakw and to nearby Prussian cities (Thorn, Danzig, Elbing, Graudenz, Malbork Marienburg, Knigsberg (Krlewiec) he would live out the remaining 40 years of his life.[53] Copernicus died in Frombork on 24 May 1543. Legend has it that the first printed copy of De revolutionibus was placed in his hands on the very day that he died, allowing him to take farewell of his life's work. He is reputed to have awoken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book, and then died peacefully. Copernicus died in Frombork on 24 May 1543. Legend has it that the first printed copy of De revolutionibus was placed in his hands on the very day that he died, allowing him to take farewell of his life's work. He is reputed to have awoken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book, and then died peacefully.

Copernicus vision of the universe Born: 19 Feb 1473 in Toru, Poland Died: 24 May 1543 in Frauenburg (now Frombork), Poland

Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer who is best known for the astronomical observations which led
Kepler to his theories of the Solar system. Tycho Brahe (14 December 1546 24 October 1601), born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. He was born in Scania, then part of Denmark, now part of modern-day Sweden. Tycho was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer and alchemist. His work as an astronomer was remarkably accurate for his time. Most importantly, it had a lasting impact which remains to this day. In his De nova stella (On the new star) of 1573, he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His precise measurements indicated that "new stars" (stella novae, now known as supernovae), in particular that of 1572, lacked the parallax expected in sub-lunar phenomena, and were therefore not "atmospheric" tail-less comets as previously believed, but occurred above the atmosphere and moon. Using similar measurements he showed that comets were also not atmospheric phenomena, as previously thought, and must pass through the supposed "immutable" celestial spheres.[5] As an astronomer, Tycho worked to combine what he saw as the geometrical benefits of the Copernican system with the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemaic system into his own model of the universe, the Tychonic system. Furthermore, he was the last of the major naked eye astronomers, working without telescopes for his observations.

Tycho is credited with the most accurate astronomical observations of his time, and the data was used by his assistant, Johannes Kepler, to derive the laws of planetary motion. Tycho Brahe was granted an estate on the island of Hven and the funding to build the Uraniborg, an early research institute, where he built large astronomical instruments and took many careful measurements, and later Stjerneborg, underground, when he discovered that his instruments in the former were not sufficiently steady. Something of an autocrat on the island he nevertheless founded manufactories such as paper-making to provide material for printing his results. After disagreements with the new Danish king in 1597, he was invited by the Bohemian king and Holy Roman emperor Rudolph II to Prague, where he became the official imperial astronomer. He built the new observatory at Bentky nad Jizerou. Here, from 1600 until his death in 1601, he was assisted by Johannes Kepler. Kepler later used Tycho's astronomical results to develop his own theories of astronomy. It has long been thought that Tycho Brahe died of a complication to his bladder, when he did not let his urine from politeness at a dinner in Prage 1601, eleven days before his death. However, more recent studies started 1996 from opening the grave of Tycho Brahe and analysing his hair, have showed that it is very likely that Tycho Brahe in fact died from Mercury poisoning. Copernicus thought that it was heliocentric theory ( that the earth revolves around the sun) and Brahe thought that it was geocentric ( that everything revolves aroung the earth )

Summary of Brahe's Contributions:

Among the important contributions of Brahe: 1.He made the most precise observations that had yet been made by devising the best instruments available before the invention of the telescope. 2.His observations of planetary motion, particularly that of Mars, provided the crucial data for later astronomers like Kepler to construct our present model of the solar system. 3.He made observations of a supernova (literally: nova= "new star") in 1572 (we now know that a supernova is an exploding star, not a new star). This was a "star" that appeared suddenly where none had been seen before, and was visible for about 18 months before fading from view. Since this clearly represented a change in the sky, prevailing opinion held that the supernova was not really a star but some local phenomenon in the atmosphere (remember: the heavens were supposed to be unchanging in the Aristotelian view). Brahe's meticulous observations showed that the supernova did not change positions with respect to the other stars (no parallax). Therefore, it was a real star, not a local object. This was early evidence against the immutable nature of the heavens, although Brahe did not interpret the absence of parallax for stars correctly, as we discuss below. 4.Brahe made careful observations of a comet in 1577. By measuring the parallax for the comet, he was able to show that the comet was further away than the Moon. This contradicted the teachings of Aristotle, who had held that comets were atmospheric phenomena ("gases burning in the atmosphere" was a common explanation among Aristotelians). As for the case of the supernova, comets represented an obvious change in a celestial sphere that was supposed to be unchanging; furthermore, it was very difficult to ascribe uniform circular motion to a comet. 5.He made the best measurements that had yet been made in the search for stellar parallax. Upon finding no parallax for the stars, he (correctly) concluded that either the earth was motionless at the center of the Universe, or the stars were so far away that their parallax was too small to measure. Not for the only time in human thought, a great thinker formulated a pivotal question correctly, but then made the wrong choice of possible answers: Brahe did not believe that the stars could possibly be so far away and so concluded that the Earth was the center of the Universe and that Copernicus was wrong. 6.Brahe proposed a model of the Solar System that was intermediate between the Ptolemaic and Copernican models (it had the Earth at the center). It proved to be incorrect, but was the most widely accepted model of the Solar System for a time. Thus, Brahe's ideas about his data were not always correct, but the quality of the observations themselves was central to the development of modern astronomy.

Stellar parallax is the effect of parallax on distant stars in astronomy. It is parallax on an interstellar scale, and it can be used to
determine the distance of Earth to another star directly with accurate astrometry. It was the subject of much debate in astronomy for hundreds of years, but was so difficult it was only achieved for a few of the nearest stars in the early 19th century. Even in the 21st century, stars with parallax measurements are relatively close on a galactic scale, as most distance measurements are calculated by redshift or other methods. The parallax is usually created by the different orbital positions of the Earth, which causes nearby stars to appear to move relative to more distant stars. By observing parallax, measuring angles and using geometry, one can determine the distance to various objects in space, typically stars, although other objects in space could be used. Because other stars are far away, the angle for measurement is small and the skinny triangle approximation can be applied, the distance to an object (measured in parsecs) is the reciprocal of the parallax (measured in arcseconds): For example, the distance to Proxima Centauri is 1/0.7687=1.3009 parsecs (4.243 ly).[1] The first successful measurement of stellar parallax was made by Friedrich Bessel in 1838 for the star 61 Cygni using a Fraunhofer heliometer at Knigsberg Observatory. Stellar Parallax : Stellar parallax the difference in direction of a celestial object as seen by an observer from two widely separated points. The measurement of parallax is used directly to find the distance of the body from the Earth (geocentric parallax) and from the Sun (heliocentric parallax). The two positions of the observer and the position of the object form a triangle; if the base line between the two observing points is known and the direction of the object as seen from each has been measured, the apex angle (the parallax) and the distance of the object from the observer can be found simply.

In the determination of a celestial distance by parallax measurement, the base line is taken as long as possible in order to obtain the greatest precision of measurement. For the Sun and Moon, the base line used is the distance between two widely separated points on the Earth; for all bodies outside the solar system, the base line is the axis of the Earth's orbit. The largest measured stellar parallax is 0.76", for the nearest star, Alpha Centauri; the smallest that can be directly measured is about 25 times smaller, but indirect methods permit calculation of the parallax, inversely proportional to the distance, for more and more distant objects but also with more and more uncertainty.

Johannes Kepler (German pronunciation: [kpl]; December 27, 1571 November 15, 1630)
was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. During his career, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, Austria, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to astronomer Tycho Brahe, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He was also a mathematics teacher in Linz, Austria, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope (the Keplerian Telescope), and mentioned the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy (a branch of mathematics within the liberal arts) and physics (a branch of natural philosophy). Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason.[1] Kepler described his new astronomy as "celestial physics",[2] as "an excursion into Aristotle's Metaphysics",[3] and as "a supplement to Aristotle's On the Heavens",[transforming the ancient tradition of physical cosmology by treating astronomy as part of a universal mathematical physics. Johannes Kepler was born about 1 PM on December 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Wrttemberg, in the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality. He was a sickly child and his parents were poor. But his evident intelligence earned him a scholarship to the University of Tbingen to study for the Lutheran ministry. There he was introduced to the ideas of Copernicus and delighted in them. In 1596, while a mathematics teacher in Graz, he wrote the first outspoken defense of the Copernican system, the Mysterium Cosmographicum. AKA Johnnes Kepler Born: 27-Dec-1571 Birthplace: Weil der Stadt, Baden-Wrttemberg, Germany Died: 15-Nov-1630 Location of death: Regensburg, Germany Cause of death: Fever Remains: Buried, St. Peter Friedhof, Regensburg, Germany Gender: Male Religion: Lutheran Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Astronomer, Mathematician Nationality: Germany Executive summary: Laws of Planetary Motion

Kepler's laws are: 1.The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. 2.A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time. 3.The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. He was the oldest of seven children. His father was a musician and wool trader, who wanted his son to study medicine as there was more money in medicine. At age eleven, Galileo was sent off to study in a Jesuit monastery.

Death
Galileo continued to receive visitors until 1642, when, after suffering fever and heart palpitations, he died on 8 January 1642, aged 77.The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, wished to bury him in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to the tombs of his father and other ancestors, and to erect a marble mausoleum in his honour.

Galileo Galilei was an Italian scientist who formulated the basic law of falling bodies, which he verified by careful measurements. He constructed a telescope with which he studied lunar craters, and discovered four moons revolving around Jupiter and espoused the Copernican cause.
Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [alilo alili]; 15 February 1564[4] 8 January 1642),was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics",the "father of science",and "the Father of Modern Science". His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments. Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax.The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact.Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials. Who invented the telescope? Hans Lippershey Hans Lippershey (1570 - September 1619), was born in western Germany, but re-settled in Middelburg in the Netherlands in 1594, marrying the same year and becoming a Dutch citizen in 1602. Lippershey was a lens maker, often credited as being the inventor of the telescope, being the first person to create and disseminate the designs for the first practical telescope. However, like the invention of the microscope, there is some debate as to who invented telescope. The practical exploitation of the instrument was certainly achieved and came to public attention in the Netherlands at about 1608, but the credit of the original invention has been claimed on behalf of three individuals: Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Jansen, and Jacob Metius.

Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705. As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Life & Character - Isaac Newton was born prematurely on Christmas day 1642 (4 January 1643, New Style) in Woolsthorpe, a hamlet near Grantham in Lincolnshire. The posthumous son of an illiterate yeoman (also named Isaac), the fatherless infant was small enough at birth to fit 'into a quartpot.' When he was barely three years old Newton's mother, Hanna (Ayscough), placed her first born with his grandmother in order to remarry and raise a second family with Barnabas Smith, a wealthy rector from nearby North Witham. Much has been made of Newton's posthumous birth, his prolonged separation from his mother, and his unrivaled hatred of his stepfather. Until Hanna returned to Woolsthorpe in 1653 after the death of her second husband, Newton was denied his mother's attention, a possible clue to his complex character. Newton's childhood was anything but happy, and throughout his life he verged on emotional collapse, occasionally falling into violent and vindictive attacks against friend and foe alike. Born: 4 Jan 1643 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England Died: 31 March 1727 in London, EnglandIsaac Newton's life can be divided into three quite distinct periods. The first is his boyhood days from 1643 up to his appointment to a chair in 1669. The second period from 1669 to 1687 was the highly productive period in which he was Lucasian professor at Cambridge. The third period (nearly as long as the other two combined) saw Newton as a highly paid government official in London with little further interest in mathematical research. Isaac Newton was born in the manor house of Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire. Although by the calendar in use at the time of his birth he was born on Christmas Day 1642, we give the date of 4 January 1643 in this biography which is the "corrected" Gregorian calendar date bringing it into line with our present calendar. (The Gregorian calendar was not adopted in England until 1752.) Isaac Newton came from a family of farmers but never knew his father, also named Isaac Newton, who died in October 1642, three months before his son was born. Although Isaac's father owned property and animals which made him quite a wealthy man, he was completely uneducated and could not sign his own name. Newton's law of universal gravitation states that every point mass in the universe attracts every other point mass with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. (Separately it was shown that large spherically symmetrical masses attract and are attracted as if all their mass were concentrated at their centers.) These two forces are called action and reaction forces and are the subject of Newton's third law of motion. Formally stated, Newton's third law is: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, or the Ptolemaic system), is the theory that the Earth is the orbital center for all celestial bodies. This model served as the predominant cosmological system in many ancient civilizations such as ancient Greece. As such, most Ancient Greek philosophers assumed that the Sun, Moon, stars, and naked eye planets circled the Earth, including the noteworthy systems of Aristotle (see Aristotelian physics) and Ptolemy.[1] Two commonly made observations supported the idea that the Earth was the center of the Universe. The first observation was that the stars, sun, and planets appear to revolve around the Earth each day, making the Earth the center of that system. Further, every star was on a "stellar" or "celestial" sphere, of which the earth was the center, that rotated each day, using a line through the north and south pole as an axis. The stars closest to the equator appeared to rise and fall the greatest distance, but each star circled back to its rising point each

day.[2] The second common notion supporting the geocentric model was that the Earth does not seem to move from the perspective of an Earth bound observer, and that it is solid, stable, and unmoving. In other words, it is completely at rest. The geocentric model was usually combined with a spherical Earth by ancient Greek and medieval philosophers. It is not the same as the older flat Earth model implied in some mythology. However, the ancient Greeks believed that the motions of the planets were circular and not elliptical, a view that was not challenged in Western culture until the 17th century through the synthesis of theories by Copernicus and Kepler. The astronomical predictions of Ptolemy's geocentric model were used to prepare astrological charts for over 1500 years. The geocentric model held sway into the early modern age, but from the late 16th century onward was gradually superseded by the heliocentric model of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. However, the transition between these two theories met much resistance, not only from Christian theologians, who were reluctant to reject a theory that was in agreement with Bible passages (e.g. "Sun, stand you still upon Gibeon", Joshua 10:12 - King James 2000 Bible), but also from those who saw geocentrism as an accepted consensus that could not be subverted by a new, unknown theory.

The word "helios" in Greek means "sun." Heliocentric means that the sun is at the center. A heliocentric system is one in which the planets revolve around a fixed sun. Thus Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all revolve around the sun. The moon is the only celestial sphere in this system which revolves around the earth, and, together with it, around the sun. This theory was first proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus was a Polish astronomer. He first published the heliocentric system in his book: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, "On the revolutions of the heavenly bodies," which appeared in 1543. Copernicus died the same year his book was published. After 1,400 years, Copernicus was the first to propose a theory which differed from Ptolemy's geocentric system, according to which the earth is at rest in the center with the rest of the planets revolving around it. The claim that all planets revolve around the sun had been raised in ancient times, but Copernicus was the first to succeed in describing the movements of the planets using an astronomical theory which placed the sun at the center.