PES Skill Sheets.book - Capital High School

Skill Sheet 26.1: Nicolaus Copernicus
1. Because he was from a privileged family, young Copernicus
had the luxury of learning about art, literature, and science.
When Copernicus was only 10 years old, his father died.
Copernicus went to live his uncle who was generous with his
money and provided Copernicus with an education from the
best universities. Copernicus lived during the height of the
Renaissance period when men from a higher social class were
expected to receive well-rounded educations.
2. Copernicus’ uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, was a prominent
Catholic Church official who became bishop of Varmia in
1489. After Copernicus finished four years of study at the
University of Krakow, Watzenrode appointed Copernicus a
church administrator. Copernicus used his church wages to
help pay for additional education. While studying at the
University of Bologna, Copernicus’ passion for astronomy
grew under the influence of his mathematics professor,
Domenico Maria de Novara. Copernicus lived in his
professor’s home where they spent hours discussing
astronomy.
3. Copernicus examined the sky from a tower in his uncle’s
palace. He made his observations without any equipment.
4. Prior to the 1500s, most astronomers believed that Earth was
motionless and the center of the universe. They also thought
that all celestial bodies moved around Earth in complicated
patterns. The Greek astronomer Ptolomy proposed this
geocentric theory more than 1000 years earlier.
Skill Sheet 26.1: Galileo Galilei
1. “On Motion” described how a pendulum’s long and short
swings take the same amount of time.
2. Galileo’s many inventions include the thermometer, water
pump, military compass, microscope, telescope, and
pendulum clock. Information and illustrations of the
inventions can be found using the Internet or library.
3. Galileo observed the motion of Jupiter’s moons and realized
that despite what Ptolemy said, heavenly bodies do not
revolve exclusively around Earth. He also realized that his
observation of the phases of Venus showed that Venus was
revolving around the sun, not around Earth. Galileo therefore
Skill Sheet 26.1: Johannes Kepler
1. Copernicus’ idea that the sun was at the center of the solar
system was revolutionary because people believed Earth was
the center of the universe.
2. Brahe helped Kepler make his important discoveries in
several ways. Brahe invited Kepler to come and work with
him. He asked Kepler to solve the problem of Mars’ orbit.
When Brahe died, Kepler gained all of his observational
records. Kepler also got Brahe’s job.
3. Kepler used mathematics to solve problems in astronomy. For
this reason, Kepler is considered a theoretical positional
astronomer. Brahe was an observational astronomer. He made
and recorded the motion of planets and the stars in the night
sky without a telescope. Galileo was also an observational
astronomer. He used and improved the telescope, but he was
not a mathematician.
4. Kepler’s discovery that Mars traveled in an elliptical orbit
was different than Copernicus’ theory which said planets
traveled in circular orbits.
5. Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion are:
Planets orbit the sun in an elliptical orbit with the sun in
one of the foci.
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5. Copernicus believed that the universe was heliocentric (suncentered),
with all of the planets revolving around the sun. He
explained that Earth rotates daily on its axis and revolves
yearly around the sun. He also suggested that Earth wobbles
like a top as it rotates. Copernicus’ theory led to a new
ordering of the planets. In addition, it explained why the
planets farther from the sun sometimes appear to move
backward (retrograde motion), while the planets closest to the
sun always seem to move in one direction. This retrograde
motion is due to Earth moving faster around the sun than the
planets farther away.
6. At the time, Church law held great influence over science and
dictated a geocentric universe.
7. The Copernicus Satellite, or Orbiting Astronomical
Observatory 3 (OAO-3) was a collaborative project of both
the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and the United Kingdom’s Science
and Engineering Research Council (SERC). The satellite
operated from August 1972 to February 1981. The main
experiment on the satellite was a Princeton University
ultraviolet (UV) telescope. An x-ray astronomy experiment
created by the University College London/Mullard Space
Science Laboratory was also onboard. The Copernicus
Satellite gathered a series of high-resolution ultraviolet
spectral scans of over 500 objects, most of them being bright
stars.
concluded that Copernicus’ assertion that the sun, not Earth,
was at the center must be correct.
4. Answers will vary. Students might suggest that Galileo use a
less abrasive approach to convince people that the Copernican
view is correct.
5. Galileo’s telescope is the most likely student response,
because it so profoundly changed our understanding of the
solar system. However, students may choose another
invention as long as they provide valid reasons for their
decision.
The law of areas says that planets speed up as they travel
in their orbit closer to the sun and they slow down as they
travel in their orbit farther away from the sun.
The harmonic law says that a planet’s distance from the
sun is mathematically related to the amount of time it
takes the planet to revolve around the sun.
6. Three examples of a paradigm shift:
Copernicus’ theory that the sun and not Earth was the
center of the solar system.
Kepler’s discovery that planets orbit the sun in an
elliptical and not a circular path.
Newton’s laws of gravitational attraction.