Copernicanism: Scientific and Philisophical Contributions of Kepler and Galileo

During the expansion of Copernicanism, two great scientific figures, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, exposed many scientific and philosophical developments that supported Copernicanism. First we will delve into these discoveries and explain what they were and the implications to Copernicanism and how these discoveries rivaled Christianity. After the premise of these discoveries are established, we can see how Kepler and Galileo tried every way possible to reconcile their scientific discoveries with Christianity, or at least make them compatible with Christianity, to a certain degree, to please the church officials at the time.

Johannes Kepler, born December 27, 1571 in Germany and died November 15, 1630, was the discoverer of the three major laws of planetary motion. To sum these laws up: the planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus; the line joining the planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times as the planet travels around the ellipse; the ratio of the squares of the revolutionary periods for two planets is equal to the ration of the cubes of their semi-major axes.

For the first law, the Sun is not at the center of the ellipse, but is at one focus of the ellipse. A planet then follows the ellipse while it orbits the Sun and means that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is constantly changing as the Earth goes around its orbit.

The second law tells us that a planet executes elliptical motion with the angular speed of the planet is changing as it moves about its orbit. This law also tells us that a planet moves fastest when it is near where the planet is closest to the Sun, and that a planet moves the slowest when it is the farthest away from the Sun. Galileo was able to observe even more about these laws with his discoveries made by his work with telescopes.