[[Johannes Kepler]] used Brahe's measurements to improve the [[Heliocentrism|heliocentric]] system Copernicus had proposed, showing that planets had elliptical orbits around the sun. When [[Isaac Newton]] applied his newly discovered [[gravitation|universal theory of gravitation]] to the data, he found that a heliocentric model was the only one that could explain all observed phenomena. By the 1800s, the spectacular successes of Newtonian theory and [[Maxwell's equations]] for electromagnetism had convinced practically everyone that the Sun is a preferred frame of reference, and that the laws of physics must be applied in that frame. The geocentric theory was finally considered to be profoundly mistaken. | [[Johannes Kepler]] used Brahe's measurements to improve the [[Heliocentrism|heliocentric]] system Copernicus had proposed, showing that planets had elliptical orbits around the sun. When [[Isaac Newton]] applied his newly discovered [[gravitation|universal theory of gravitation]] to the data, he found that a heliocentric model was the only one that could explain all observed phenomena. By the 1800s, the spectacular successes of Newtonian theory and [[Maxwell's equations]] for electromagnetism had convinced practically everyone that the Sun is a preferred frame of reference, and that the laws of physics must be applied in that frame. The geocentric theory was finally considered to be profoundly mistaken. |