Since ancient times, people have watched the starry sky with excitement, trying to unravel the mystery of the structure of the surrounding world. Today humanity knows a lot more about how the Universe works, what elements and objects it consists of. But ancient ideas about the universe were significantly different from modern scientific views.
Instructions
Step 1
One of the oldest surviving descriptions of the universe belongs to the Indians. They seriously believed that the Earth is flat and rests on the backs of three giant elephants, which stand on a huge tortoise. The Indians placed the tortoise on a snake, which was the personification of the sky and closed all conceivable space.
Step 2
The neighbors of the Indians, the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, assumed that the Earth was one giant mountain, surrounded on all sides by an endless sea. Over the land and sea waters, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia placed a starry sky in the form of a giant overturned bowl.
Step 3
Several centuries passed until in Ancient Greece it was suggested that the Earth did not look like a plane, but had a spherical shape. This opinion was held by the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras. A little later, the hypothesis of Pythagoras was logically substantiated and proved by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
Step 4
Aristotle developed his own model of the structure of the universe. In the center, he placed a stationary Earth, around which several solid and transparent celestial spheres allegedly revolved. A variety of celestial bodies were fixed on each sphere - stars, the sun, the moon, planets. The movement of all the spheres mentioned was provided by a special engine of the Universe.
Step 5
Aristotle's views on the structure of the Universe were developed by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy, who lived already in the II century AD in the late Hellenistic period. In his system, there were also celestial bodies located around the Earth. According to Ptolemy, the boundaries of the universe are determined by the sphere of fixed stars.
Step 6
The system of this Greek astronomer described the apparent movement of celestial bodies quite well and, thanks to this, was entrenched in science for several centuries. Ptolemy's views were accepted in the Arab and Western world until the creation of the heliocentric system proposed by Copernicus.
