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Because the heliocentric model devised by Copernicus was no more accurate than Ptolemy's system, new observations were needed to persuade those who still adhered to the geocentric model. However, Kepler's laws based upon Brahe's data became a problem which geocentrists could not easily overcome.
A heliocentric system would require more intricate systems to compensate for the shift in reference point. It was not until Kepler's proposal of elliptical orbits that such a system became increasingly more accurate than a mere epicyclical geocentric model. [9] The basic simplicity of the Copernican universe, from Thomas Digges' book
Scientific realism is the view that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. A believer of scientific realism takes the universe as described by science to be true (or approximately true), because of their assertion that science can be used to find the truth (or approximate truth) about both the physical and metaphysical in the Universe.
Philolaus (4th century BCE) was one of the first to hypothesize movement of the Earth, probably inspired by Pythagoras' theories about a spherical, moving globe. In the 3rd century BCE, Aristarchus of Samos proposed what was, so far as is known, the first serious model of a heliocentric Solar System, having developed some of Heraclides Ponticus' theories (speaking of a "revolution of the Earth ...
Instead of using the current accepted idea of dark energy, this model proposes the universe is much more inhomogeneous than currently assumed, and instead, we are in an extremely large low-density void. [31] To match observations we would have to be very close to the centre of this void, immediately contradicting the Copernican principle.
Newton adopted the "at rest" alternative in view of common consent that the center, wherever it was, was at rest. [138] Meanwhile, the Catholic Church remained opposed to heliocentrism as a literal description, but this did not by any means imply opposition to all astronomy; indeed, it needed observational data to maintain its calendar.
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This was the first time that a heliocentric model had seriously been considered, and publicised, and a resulted in a slew of opinions on how the universe may work. One such place that these debates existed was the University of Wittenberg which was home to many astronomers, astrologists and mathematicians, such as Erasmus Reinhold, Philip ...