Relevant Chapter Web Links

Chapter 1

Motion in a circle concentric with the Earth does not allow the Moon to change sizes. The fact that it DOES change sizes was problematic for Aristotle, Aristarchus, and others. See for yourself! Read about the phases of the Moon and watch the Lunation Movie linked at the bottom of that page.

Chapter 2

Pythagoras and Music of the Spheres

Animation of retrograde motion

Heliocentric model Java demonstration showing retrograde motion of Mars

McGraw Hill index of Quick-Time animations

Chapter 3

Ancient Planetary Model Animations

The animations illustrate the models of planetary motion found in the Almagest, by Claudius Ptolemy, and some of the models formulated by Arabic astronomers that correct some of the (as felt at the time) theoretical shortcomings of the Almagest models.

Models of Planetary Motion from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Statue Hid Hipparchus Star Catalog Physics Today

Ptolemy Tilted Off His Axis LA Times

Chapter 4

de Revolutionibus scanned in its entirety and on-line

Copernican Model, A Sun-Centered Solar System

Nicholas Copernicus

Chapter 5

The Galileo Project

Galileo museum in Florence, Italy

Tycho Brahe from Rice University

Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer

The instruments of Tycho Brahe

Johannes Kepler's Polyhedra

Kepler Motion Interactive Java Program

Kepler's Laws with Animation

Chapter 6

Newton's Mountain-top Cannon

Sir Isaac Newton and the Laws of Gravity

The Apollo 15 Feather-Hammer Drop "Galileo was correct!"

Isaac Newton's Gravity: How a major new exhibition gets the scientist wrong.

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10