Lee just had an awful thought

"Do you think Leiden or one of the there minstry officials will come to this lesson?"

Evy walked in the room and noticed Lee, who was seated next to a Ravenclaw girl she had never seen before.

'Hello there!'

Everyone's looking sad, she tought. Must be because of all these ministry officials taking the place of the teachers. At least we still have professor Dae, and I hope Astronomy will be as fun as usual.

Evy smiled shyly.

Lee took notice of Evy and smiled

"Hello Evy nice to see you again, how arethings going?"

"Not so bad. I wish we could have our real teachers back though... And you, what have you been up to lately?"

"Trying to get on the good side of Miss Shwmae"

Lee laughed

"Doesn't seem to be working"

Alicia walks up to the astronomy tower and takes a seat right by one of the large window panes. She takes out her book, notebook, and quills and waits for the leson to begin.

Hello everyone!

I would first like to thank you for your support and encouragement, it means a great deal to me. I know that things in the school aren't running all that smoothly, but we have a duty to keep the school running and will keep the classes going as normally as possible.

Now, lesson 3 will be spent on important figures in Astronomy. I have a few in mind, but is there anyone in particular you would like to learn about?

"Could we learn about Jupiter?" Xavier asks. "It's wuite an interesting topic."

Serena raised her hand.

If you mean people, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton are two I'm interested in, and more recently Edwin Powell Hubble.

Francis raised her hand. "Copernicus? Ptolomeo?... Or some of the philosophers that talked about life elsewhere and how life came about (i.e. cosmic rays)?"

*raises hand all too enthusiastically* Galileo Galilei! I mean, I already read some of his thoughts but there can never be enough to learn. Another famous figures are Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Copérnico, Juan Kepler... oh and Lippershey! By the way, I am curious: Is it true that the first to study the stars were not the humans but the centaurs (=P)? They do have a great history concerning them but I'm not sure it is more than a rumour or myth."

=P

Well you just mentioned everyone I had in mind! Plus a couple of extra's...


We don't know the exact date, but yes, we believe that the centaur's were studying the stars and the universe more before any muggle.

We will talk about Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, Kepler and Newton. I will fit in Hubble if we have time...

Firstly, Nicolaus Copernicus...

He was born on February 19, 1473. Can anyone tell me where?

Francis raised her hand. "He was born in what used to be known as Frauenburg, Poland.. which is now known as Frombork, Poland"

I have Thorn (now Toruñ), Poland. Close enough, 2 points.

He was born into a family of merchants and municipal officials. Copernicus's maternal uncle, Bishop £ukasz Watzenrode, saw to it that his nephew obtained a solid education at the best universities. Copernicus entered Jagie³³onian University in 1491, studied the liberal arts for four years without receiving a degree, and then, like many Poles of his social class, went to Italy to study medicine and law. Before he left, his uncle had him appointed a church administrator in Frauenberg (now Frombork); this was a post with financial responsibilities but no priestly duties.

In January 1497 Copernicus began to study canon law at the University of Bologna while living in the home of a mathematics professor, Domenico Maria de Novara. Copernicus's geographical and astronomical interests were greatly stimulated by Domenico Maria, an early critic of the accuracy of the Geography of the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy. Together, the two men observed the occultation (the eclipse by the moon) of the star Aldebaran on March 9, 1497.

In 1500 Copernicus lectured on astronomy in Rome. The following year he gained permission to study medicine at Padua, the university where Galileo taught nearly a century later. It was not unusual at the time to study a subject at one university and then to receive a degree from another—often less expensive—institution. And so Copernicus, without completing his medical studies, received a doctorate in canon law from Ferrara in 1503 and then returned to Poland to take up his administrative duties.

From 1503 to 1510, Copernicus lived in his uncle's bishopric palace in Lidzbark Warminski, assisting in the administration of the diocese and in the conflict against the Teutonic Knights. There he published his first book, a Latin translation of letters on morals by a 7th-century Byzantine writer, Theophylactus of Simocatta. Sometime between 1507 and 1515, he completed a short astronomical treatise, De Hypothesibus Motuum Coelestium a se Constitutis Commentariolus (known as the Commentariolus), which was not published until the 19th century. In this work he laid down the principles of his new heliocentric astronomy.

After moving to Frauenberg in 1512, Copernicus took part in the Fifth Lateran Council's commission on calendar reform in 1515; wrote a treatise on money in 1517; and began his major work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), which was finished by 1530 but was first published by a Lutheran printer in Nürnberg, Germany, just before Copernicus's death in 1543.

Can anyone tell me any interesting facts about Copernicus?

*raise hand* He developed a heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory of the solar system, as oppossed to the geocentric theory (Earth as te centre of the universe), published in a form detailed enough to make it scientifically useful in 1543. He also replaced Ptolemy's equant circles with epicycles. This is the main source of the statement that his system had even more epicycles than Ptolemy's. One of the steps to explain his theory was to prove that all the planets move along orbits whose center is the Sun, therefore the Sun is the center of the World... Well, Copernicus was never certain whether the Sun moved or not, claiming that the center of the World is 'in the Sun, or near it.'

"... only thing left is to explain the theory now, right? I mean, how he managed to prove that it was the earth the one that moved and not the sun. The history was prett much covered =P"

Zekke nodded at Nadia's answer and quietly scrawled some notes in his notebook.

Astronomy was terribly fascinating for him, but for some reason, his enthusiasm for classes had all but died. In fact, he had been fighting against a wave of heaviness in his mind and heart for the last several days.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

Zekke had scrawled over a page of notes as he listened to everyone speaking, but when he glanced down at his notebook, he realized that he had written a pageful of anything BUT notes.

The tension in the room - like the tension throughout the school - was so thick that he could feel it seeping into his pores. His own worries and last bout of illness had left his own mental barriers and shields rather weak. Right now, the weakness of his shields allowed him to inadvertently sense the emotions emanating in the suddenly-stifling and confined room and these emotions were hammering away at his last vestiges of emotional self preservation. The cool and stoic exterior he always wore in public was starting to crack.

His already pale face suddenly paled even further and the contents of his stomach threatened to vacate rather violently. A thousand little hammers chose that moment to pound on his skull and his mouth opened in a silent cry of pain.

He looked up at the professor and silently apologized for his necessary departure.

Once he thought he had her acknowledgement, he collected his things as quietly as he could and slipped out the room as silently as possible.

Once out the room, he allowed himself to gasp at the pain.

The potion... the medication...

He needed to calm down and take his medication as fast as possible and not necessarily in that order.

With long-legged strides, he made his way to the Hallway...

Eric raised his hand after a moment's thought. "Copernicus distributed a book he wrote entitled 'Little Commentary' to his friends. That book contained seven axioms.

1. There is no one center in the universe.
2. The Earth's center is not the center of the universe.
3. The center of the universe is the sun.
4. The distance from the Earth to the sun is imperceptible compared with the distance of the stars.
5. The rotation of the Earth accounts for the apparent daily rotation of the stars.
6. The apparent annual cycle of movements of the sun is caused by the Earth revolving around it.
7. The apparent retrogade motion of the planets is caused by the motion of the Earth from which one observes."

He exhaled loudly before grinning. "It's pretty much what Nadia said."

Serena raised her hand.

Nicolaus Copernicus is the Latin version of his name which he chose to take later in his life. His original name was Mikolaj Kopernik or Nicolaus Koppernigk. Nicolaus was one of four children, two sons and two daughters, of whom Nicolaus Copernicus was the youngest.

When war broke out between Poland and the Teutonic Knights towards the end of 1519 Copernicus lived in Frauenburg. Copenicus participated in peace talks in Braunsberg as one of a two man delegation representing the Bishop of Ermland. The peace talks failed and the war continued. Even though Frauenburg came under siege, Copernicus continued to make his scientific observations. About 1520, Copernicus moved back to Allenstein Castle and had to organise its defense against attacking forces. The castle resisted the attack and by 1521 an uneasy peace had returned. As a reward for his defense of Allenstein, he was appointed Commissar of Ermland and given the task of rebuilding the district after the war.

Lee looks blanky at the professor he was extremelly confused. Lee decided he needed some rest and din't think the professor would mind his absence since he had no clue what she was talking baout. He gathered his thing and left quietly so as not to disturb anything

kasnadra looked at lee as he walks out
"where are you going" she wispered

Very good! 10 points to Nadia, Serena and angelwings.

That's right. Copernicus developed the heliocentric theory of the universe. That the sun is at rest near the center of the universe, and that the earth, spinning on its axis once daily, revolves annually around the sun. He was also and early critic of the Geography theory of the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy.

The major premises of Copernicus's theory are that the earth rotates daily on its axis and revolves yearly around the sun. He argued, furthermore, that the planets also circle the sun, and that the earth precesses on its axis (wobbles like a top) as it rotates. The Copernican theory retained many features of the cosmology it replaced, including the solid, planet-bearing spheres, and the finite outermost sphere bearing the fixed stars. On the other hand, Copernicus's heliocentric theories of planetary motion had the advantage of accounting for the apparent daily and yearly motion of the sun and stars, and it neatly explained the apparent retrograde motion of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn and the fact that Mercury and Venus never move more than a certain distance from the sun. Copernicus's theory also stated that the sphere of the fixed stars was stationary.

Another important feature of Copernican theory is that it allowed a new ordering of the planets according to their periods of revolution. In Copernicus's universe, unlike Ptolemy's, the greater the radius of a planet's orbit, the greater the time the planet takes to make one circuit around the sun. But the price of accepting the concept of a moving earth was too high for most 16th-century readers who understood Copernicus's claims. In addition, Copernicus's calculations of astronomical positions were neither decisively simpler nor more accurate than those of his predecessors, even though his heliocentric theory made good physical sense, for the first time, of planetary movements. As a result, parts of his theory were adopted, while the radical core was ignored or rejected.

So even though he made some great advances into astronomy, not all were correct or accepted. However those that were lead to future scientists making great headway in the subject. Without Copernicus' Heliocentric theory, we wouldn't know as much about our universe as we do today!'

Next comes Galileo. Not much heed was paid to the Copernican theory until Galileo, a long admirer of his work.

Can anyone tell me when and where Galileo was born?

[ooc: Deleted post. Completey read the wrong birth date. *feels stupid*]

Serena raised her hand

Galileo Galilei

Born: 15 Feb 1564 in Pisa (now in Italy)
Died: 8 Jan 1642 in Arcetri (near Florence) (now in Italy)

Francis nodded. "Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa on Feb 15 in 1564 and died on Jan 8 in 1642 in Arcetri. His achievements include improving the telescope and supporting Coppernicus effectively."