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Copernican principle

About: Copernican principle is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 509 publications have been published within this topic receiving 11129 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Copernican world model has been shown to be a "mere theory" as mentioned in this paper, not a "fact," and it has not been verified by direct observations even to the extent the sphericity of the earth has been observed.
Abstract: As RECENTLY AS 1966, sheik Abd el Aziz bin Baz asked the king of Saudi Arabia to suppress a heresy that was spreading in his land. Wrote the sheik: "The Holy Koran, the Prophet's teachings, the majority of Islamic scientists, and the actual facts all prove that the sun is running in its orbit ... and that the earth is fixed and stable, spread out by God for his mankind. ... Anyone who professed otherwise would utter a charge of falsehood toward God, the Koran, and the Prophet." The good sheik evidently holds the Copernican theory to be a "mere theory," not a "fact." In this he is technically correct. A theory can be verified by a mass of facts, but it becomes a proven theory, not a fact. The sheik was perhaps unaware that the Space Age had begun before he asked the king to suppress the Copernican heresy. The sphericity of the earth had been seen by astronauts, and even by many earth-bound people on their television screens. Perhaps the sheik could retort that those who venture beyond the confines of God's earth suffer hallucinations, and that the earth is really flat. Parts of the Copernican world model, such as the contention that the earth rotates around the sun, and not vice versa, have not been verified by direct observations even to the extent the sphericity of the earth has been. Yet scientists accept the model as an accurate representation of reality. Why? Because it makes sense of a multitude of facts which are otherwise meaningless or extravagant. To nonspecialists most of these facts are unfamiliar. Why then do we accept the "mere theory" that the earth is a sphere revolving around a spherical sun? Are we simply submitting to authority? Not quite: we know that those who took time to study the evidence found it convincing. The good sheik is probably ignorant of the evidence. Even more likely, he is so hopelessly biased that no amount of evidence would impress him. Anyway, it would be sheer waste of time to attempt to convince him. The Koran and the Bible do not contradict Copernicus, nor does Copernicus contradict them. It is ludicrous to mistake the Bible and the Koran for primers of natural science. They treat of matters even more important: the meaning of man and his relations to God. They are written in poetic symbols that were understandable to people of the age when they were written, as well as to peoples of all other ages. The king of Arabia did not comply with the sheik's demand. He knew that some people fear enlightenment, because enlightenment threatens their vested interests. Education is not to be used to promote obscurantism. The earth is not the geometric center of the universe, although it may be its spiritual center. It is a mere speck of dust in cosmic spaces. Contrary to Bishop Ussher's calculations, the world did not appear in approximately its present state in 4004 B.C. The estimates of the age of the universe given by modern cosmologists are still only rough approximations, which are revised (usually upward) as the methods of estimation are refined. Some cosmologists take the universe to be about 10 billion years old; others suppose that it may have existed, and will continue to exist, eternally. The origin of life on earth is dated tentatively between 3 and 5 billion years ago; manlike beings appeared relatively quite recently, between 2 and 4 million years ago. The estimates of the age of the earth, of the duration of the geologic and paleontologic eras, and of the antiquity of man's ancestors are now based mainly on radiometric evidence-the proportions of isotopes of certain chemical elements in rocks suitable for such studies.

2,143 citations

Book
27 Apr 2016
TL;DR: The Guide to the Principia Mathematica by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman as discussed by the authors was the first in 270 years to be published in English, and is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton.
Abstract: In his monumental 1687 work "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", known familiarly as the "Principia", Isaac Newton laid out in mathematical terms the principles of time, force, and motion that have guided the development of modern physical science. Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world, and Newtonian celestial dynamics is used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles. This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms. Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and, the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the "Principia" also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system. The illuminating "Guide to the Principia" by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.

636 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
02 Dec 1999-Nature
TL;DR: In this paper, the Copernican revolution is described as a second "Copernican" revolution that put the Earth in its correct astrophysical context and developed concepts for global environmental management.
Abstract: Optical magnification instruments once brought about the Copernican revolution that put the Earth in its correct astrophysical context. Sophisticated information-compression techniques including simulation modelling are now ushering in a second ‘Copernican’ revolution. The latter strives to understand the ‘Earth system’ as a whole and to develop, on this cognitive basis, concepts for global environmental management.

413 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The Copernican principle is a line of thought which is potentially fertile, but which I did not write up at the time because I felt (as I still feel) that it needs further development.
Abstract: Prof. Wheeler has asked me to say something for the record about some ideas that I once suggested (at the Clifford Memorial meeting in Princeton in 1970) and to which Hawking and Collins have referred (Astrophys. J. 180, 317, 1973). This concerns a line of thought which I believe to be potentially fertile, but which I did not write up at the time because I felt (as I still feel) that it needs further development. However, it is not inappropriate that this matter should have cropped up again on the present occasion, since it consists basically of a reaction against exaggerated subservience to the ‘Copernican principle’.

376 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work presents an observational test for the Copernican assumption which can be automatically implemented while the authors search for dark energy in the coming decade, and is entirely independent of any model fordark energy or theory of gravity.
Abstract: To date, there has been no general way of determining if the Copernican principle--that we live at a typical position in the Universe--is in fact a valid assumption, significantly weakening the foundations of cosmology as a scientific endeavor. Here we present an observational test for the Copernican assumption which can be automatically implemented while we search for dark energy in the coming decade. Our test is entirely independent of any model for dark energy or theory of gravity and thereby represents a model-independent test of the Copernican principle.

301 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202313
202230
202114
202010
201917
20189