Historical Development of the Universe- Lianne Ward

Aristotle was a philosopher, who designed his model of the universe from reasoning ideas, like that the earth was spherical rather than flat His model depicted the earth was at the centre of the universe, with the sun, moon, and planets all revolved around the earth.

Aristarchus, a Greek astronomer, suggested that because the sun is much bigger than the earth, it was the centre of the universe, and that planet Earth rotates on its axis once a day. This model was later named a heliocentric model (meaning the sun was in the center).

Ptolemy was a Geographer, an Astronomer and a Mathematician who elaborated upon Aristotle's model of the universe, believing that the Earth was in the centre, which is the "geocentric" theory. (geo meaning earth in Greek)

Copernicus was a Polish astronomer who put forward the idea that the sun was stationary at the centre of the universe and that all other bodies revolved around it in circular paths.

Brahe, a Danish astronomer, created a model of the universe which was both heliocentric, and geocentric, with the planets revolving around the Sun, and the Sun revolving around the Earth.

Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist and astronomer, who discovered four of Jupiter's moons, and was able to prove the geocentric model to be incorrect through the use of a telescope.

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer who used much of Brahe’s records for his own research from which he finally developed his own heliocentric model. In this model, the planets moved in elliptical orbits around the sun. He also theorised that the closer the planets were to the sun, the faster they orbited.

Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist who invented the reflecting telescope, and investigated and proved his theory of gravity's existence on Earth. Using mathematics he was able to prove that the sun was the centre of the universe as shown by his own universal gravitational laws.