Sections Review
Video lecture for this chapter
This material (including images) is copyrighted!.
See my copyright notice for fair use
practices.
Vocabulary
| astronomical unit | epicycle | geocentric |
| heliocentric | instrumentalism | Occam's Razor |
| paradigm | Pythagorean paradigm | realism |
| retrograde motion |
- What two basic kinds of models have been proposed to explain the
motions of the planets?
- What is the Ptolemaic model? What new things did Ptolemy add to his
model?
- Why are epicycles needed in Ptolemy's model?
- Why was the Ptolemaic model accepted for more than 1000 years?
- In what ways was the Ptolemaic model a good scientific model and in
what ways was it not?
- What is the Copernican model and how did it explain retrograde motion?
- Why did Copernicus believe in his model?
- Why did Copernicus not know the absolute distance between various
planets and the Sun in his model? Explain what he would have needed to
know to get the absolute distances.
- What important contributions did Tycho Brahe make to astronomy?
Go back to previous section --
Go to next section
last updated:
January 21, 2022
Is this page a copy of Strobel's
Astronomy Notes?
Author of original content:
Nick Strobel