Chapter 1 Our Picture of the Universe Summary and Analysis

The nature of the universe has been looked at in many different ways throughout the ages. The older views may seem ridiculous today, such as the earth being a disk that sits on the back of a giant tortoise, but our present day ways of thinking may someday also seem ridiculous as we learn more. Physicists do not know everything about how the universe works even to this day.

Aristotle of the ancient Greeks (384-322 BC) thinks the earth is stationary, with the moon, sun, planets and stars revolving around it; however, the ancient Greeks are also aware the earth is a sphere. Ptolemy (second century AD) expands the earth-centric model to give fairly accurate predictions of planet positions, and the Christian church adopts this model because it gives room for...