TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index G > Category: Geocentric

Geocentric Quotes (6 quotes)

…The present revolution of scientific thought follows in natural sequence on the great revolutions at earlier epochs in the history of science. Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which explains the indeterminateness of the frame of space and time, crowns the work of Copernicus who first led us to give up our insistence on a geocentric outlook on nature; Einstein's general theory of relativity, which reveals the curvature or non-Euclidean geometry of space and time, carries forward the rudimentary thought of those earlier astronomers who first contemplated the possibility that their existence lay on something which was not flat. These earlier revolutions are still a source of perplexity in childhood, which we soon outgrow; and a time will come when Einstein’s amazing revelations have likewise sunk into the commonplaces of educated thought.
In The Theory of Relativity and its Influence on Scientific Thought (1922), 31-32
Science quotes on:  |  Amazing (35)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Childhood (42)  |  Commonplace (24)  |  Crown (39)  |  Curvature (8)  |  Einstein (101)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explain (334)  |  First (1302)  |  Flat (34)  |  Follow (389)  |  Forward (104)  |  General (521)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Great (1610)  |  History (716)  |  History Of Science (80)  |  Insistence (12)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Non-Euclidean (7)  |  Outlook (32)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Present (630)  |  Relativity (91)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Thought (17)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Space (523)  |  Space And Time (38)  |  Special (188)  |  Still (614)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Relativity (33)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

After a duration of a thousand years, the power of astrology broke down when, with Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, the progress of astronomy overthrew the false hypothesis upon which the entire structure rested, namely the geocentric system of the universe. The fact that the earth revolves in space intervened to upset the complicated play of planetary influences, and the silent stars, related to the unfathomable depths of the sky, no longer made their prophetic voices audible to mankind. Celestial mechanics and spectrum analysis finally robbed them of their mysterious prestige.
Franz Cumont, translated by J.B. Baker, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans (1912, 2007), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Astrology (46)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Celestial Mechanics (4)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Depth (97)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Influence (231)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mysterious (83)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Planet (402)  |  Planetary (29)  |  Power (771)  |  Prestige (16)  |  Progress (492)  |  Rest (287)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Sky (174)  |  Space (523)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Unfathomable (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Upset (18)  |  Year (963)

I do not personally want to believe that we already know the equations that determine the evolution and fate of the universe; it would make life too dull for me as a scientist. … I hope, and believe, that the Space Telescope might make the Big Bang cosmology appear incorrect to future generations, perhaps somewhat analogous to the way that Galileo’s telescope showed that the earth-centered, Ptolemaic system was inadequate.
From 'The Space Telescope (the Hubble Space Telescope): Out Where the Stars Do Not Twinkle', in NASA Authorization for Fiscal Year 1978: Hearings before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, United States Senate, 95th Congress, first session on S.365 (1977), 124. This was testimony to support of authorization for NASA beginning the construction of the Space Telescope, which later became known as the Hubble Space Telescope.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Analogous (7)  |  Bang (29)  |  Belief (615)  |  Big Bang (45)  |  Cosmology (26)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Do (1905)  |  Dull (58)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Equation (138)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fate (76)  |  Future (467)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Generation (256)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hubble Space Telescope (9)  |  Inadequate (20)  |  Incorrect (6)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Show (353)  |  Space (523)  |  System (545)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Universe (900)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)

If one might wish for impossibilities, I might then wish that my children might be well versed in physical science, but in due subordination to the fulness and freshness of their knowledge on moral subjects. ... Rather than have it the principal thing in my son's mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament.
Letter to Dr. Greenhill (9 May 1836). In Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold (2nd Ed., 1846), 277.
Science quotes on:  |  Bright (81)  |  Children (201)  |  Due (143)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Firmament (18)  |  Freshness (8)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Principal (69)  |  Set (400)  |  Son (25)  |  Spangle (2)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Wish (216)

It [the earth] alone remains immoveable, whilst all things revolve round it.
History, 2, 11. Trans. H. Rackham, Pliny: Natural History, corrected edition (1949), Vol. 1, 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Alone (324)  |  Around (7)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Thing (1914)

Somebody once observed to the eminent philosopher Wittgenstein how stupid medieval Europeans living before the time of Copernicus must have been that they could have looked at the sky and thought that the sun was circling the earth. Surely a modicum of astronomical good sense would have told them that the reverse was true. Wittgenstein is said to have replied: “I agree. But I wonder what it would have looked like if the sun had been circling the earth.”
In Day the Universe Changed (1985), 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Circling (2)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eminent (20)  |  European (5)  |  Good (906)  |  Heliocentric (4)  |  Living (492)  |  Look (584)  |  Medieval (12)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sky (174)  |  Stupid (38)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surely (101)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Ludwig Wittgenstein (16)  |  Wonder (251)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.