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around the sun, and this is called ‘helio’ ‘centrism’, with helio meaning sun, but 
historically, it took quite a while for this to be deduced. 
As early as the third century BC, an ancient Greek astronomer, Aristarchus of Samos, 
proposed heliocentrism, but received little support from his peers. Similarly, throughout 
subsequent history, isolated individuals proposed this new idea, Q32 but again, no 
one was listening. Geocentrism just seemed too logical to refute. Geocentrism also fitted 
the views of the established Christian church, who could quote biblical passages such as 
‘the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved’. Those who dared disagree were 
subject to accusations of heresy, often with dire punishments to follow. 
The trouble was, as the night sky was observed more closely, that simple revolution of 
the stars proved not so simple at all. In relation to the others stars, some steadily 
wandered in given directions, then sometimes reversed for months, and disappeared 
altogether. They were called planets, meaning ‘wanderers’. In addition, the position of 
the sun and moon altered slightly over the year, and comets, those mysterious glowing 
spots, would come and go. In order to predict the motion of the planets, and accurately 
Q33 serve the primary purpose of navigation for sailing ships, increasingly elaborate 
mathematical models were needed—a sure sign that something was not quite right. 
Heliocentrism, or the belief that the sun is the centre of the solar system, still needed a 
mathemalically-sound description before it could be scientifically accepted, and it was a 
Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, who, in 1543, first published this. This event is 
sometimes referred to as the Copernican Q34 revolution. Copernicus himself certainly 
feared the consequences of his proof, knowing full well it might invoke the anger of the 
established church. Probably for this reason, he wailed until the last year of his life, when 
he was Q35 sick and dying, to release his findings. In addition, the preface of the book, 
written by a respected member of the church, staled that the model was not necessarily 
correct. As a result of this, there was no ‘revolution" whatsoever—in fact, the book 
received scant Q36 attention in the subsequent decades, apart from a few irate clergy 
men who angrily dismissed the whole scheme as irrelevant. 
Yet the following generations of astronomers did not always fare so well. The Italian 

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