History of science 3: Myths about the Copernican revolution
Channel: Richard E Borcherds
Date: 2020-06-16

In the 16th century Copernicus introduced the idea that the earth orbits the sun (the heliocentric theory). However, far from being better than the geocentric theory of Ptolomy, Copernicus's theory was no simpler, gave a worse fit to observations, was no more correct, and was not even new. It was only the later discoveries of Kepler and Newton that made the heliocentric theory more convenient to use.