Mankind has sought and continues to seek the answer to the question of its origin and the world around it.
Ancient understanding of the universe
In ancient times, the knowledge of civilization was meager and superficial. Understanding the nature of the world around us was based on the opinion that everything was created by a supernatural force or its representatives. All ancient mythology bears the imprint of the intervention of the Gods in the development and life of civilization. Due to the lack of knowledge about the processes in nature, man reckoned the creation of all things to God, the Higher Mind, and spirits.
Over time, human knowledge "lifted the curtain" of a hidden understanding of the nature around us. Thanks to outstanding scientists and philosophers of various eras, the understanding of everything around them became more understandable and less erroneous. For many centuries, religion has hindered and suppressed dissent. Everything that was not consistent with the understanding of "the creation of the world and man" was eradicated, and philosophers and natural scientists were physically eliminated, as a warning to others.
Geocentric system of the world
According to the Catholic Church, the Earth was the center of the world. It was this hypothesis that Aristotle put forward in the second century BC. This system of the device of the world was called geocentric (from the ancient Greek word Γῆ, Γαῖα - Earth). According to Aristotle, the Earth was a ball in the center of the universe.
There was another opinion, where the Earth was a cone. Anaximander believed that the Earth was in the form of a low cylinder with a height three times smaller than the diameter of the base. Anaximenes, Anaxagoras considered the Earth flat, resembling a tabletop.
In an earlier period, it was believed that the planet rests on a huge mythical creature, in the likeness of a turtle.
Pythagoras and the spherical shape of the Earth
In the time of Pythagoras, the main opinion was determined that our planet is still a spherical body. But society, for its part, did not support this idea. It was not clear to the man how he was on the ball and did not slide, and did not fall from it. In addition, it was not clear how the Earth was supported in space. Many assumptions were put forward. Some thought the planet was held in by compressed air; others thought it was resting in the ocean. There was a hypothesis that the Earth, being the center of the world, is stationary and does not require any support.
The Renaissance is eventful
Centuries later, the structure of the world at the beginning of the 16th century underwent a major revision. A large number of philosophers and scientists of that time openly tried to prove the fallacy of people's ideas about their place in the Universe and the nature of everything around. Among them were such great minds as: Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Nikolai Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci.
The path of the formation of truth and the acceptance by society of the fact that there is another system of the world’s organization turned out to be difficult and thorny. The 16th century became a reference point in the battle for a new worldview of outstanding minds with a universal understanding of the people of that time. The trouble with such a slow change in understanding of society lay in the imposition by religion of a single understanding of the nature of everything around, which was purely divine and supernatural in nature.
The Roman Inquisition immediately eliminated dissent in society.
Copernicus - the founder of the first scientific revolution
Long before the Renaissance, in the third century BC, Aristarchus admitted that there has to be a different system of world order.
Copernicus in his works “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres” proved that the old understanding that the Earth is the center of the world and the Sun revolves around it is fundamentally wrong.
His book, published in 1543, contained evidence of heliocentrism (the heliocentric system implies an understanding that our Earth revolves around the Sun) of the world. He developed the theory of planetary motion around the Sun at the beginning of the Pythagorean principle of uniform circular motions.
The work of Nicholas Copernicus was for some time accessible to philosophers and naturalists. The Catholic Church realized that the scientist’s work seriously undermines its authority and recognized the scientist’s work as heretical and defaming the truth. In 1616, his writings were seized and burned.
The great genius of his time - Leonardo da Vinci
Forty years before Copernicus, another brilliant mind of the Renaissance - Leonardo da Vinci, in his spare time from other activities, made sketches where it was clearly shown that the Earth is not the center of the world.
The system of the world of Leonardo da Vinci was reflected in some sketches of drawings that have come down to us. He took notes on the margins of the sketches, from which it follows that the Earth, like the rest of the planets of our solar system, revolves around the Sun. The brilliant philosopher, artist, inventor and scientist understood the deep essence of things, ahead of his time by several centuries.
Leonardo da Vinci, through his writings, made it clear that there is a different system of world order. The 16th century turned out to be a difficult period of the struggle of understanding the universe between great minds and the established opinion of the society of that time.
The struggle of two systems of the device of the world
The system of the world at the beginning of the 16th century was considered by scientists of that time in two directions. During this period, a confrontation of two types of worldview was formed - geocentric and heliocentric. And only after almost a hundred years, the heliocentric system of the device of the world began to win. Copernicus became the founder of a new understanding in academia.
His work “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres” turned out to be unclaimed for almost fifty years. Society at that time was not ready to accept its “new” place in the Universe, to lose the position of the center of the world. And only at the end of the 16th century, the heliocentric system of Bruno’s world, based on the work of Copernicus, again excited the great minds of society.
Giordano Bruno and a true understanding of the universe
Giordano Bruno opposed the Aristotelian-Ptolemy system of the world, which reigned during his period, contrasting the Copernican system. He expanded it, creating philosophical conclusions, pointed to some of the facts that today are recognized by science as indisputable. He argued that the stars are distant Suns, and that there are countless cosmic bodies in the Universe similar to our Sun.
In 1592, he was arrested in Venice and transferred to the Roman Inquisition.
Subsequently, after seven years in prison, the Church of Rome demanded Bruno to renounce “wrong” beliefs. After refusal, he was burned at the stake like a heretic. Giordano Bruno paid dearly for his participation in the struggle for the heliocentric system of the world. Future generations appreciated the sacrifice of the great scientist, in 1889 a monument was erected at the place of execution in Rome.
The future of civilization is determined by its rationality.
Over the millennia, the accumulated experience of mankind suggests that the knowledge gained is as close as possible to the current level of understanding. But the guarantee that they will be reliable tomorrow does not exist.
As practice shows, the expansion of our understanding of the universe suggests the idea that everything is somewhat different than we previously imagined.
Another key problem that has been going through the millennia is the process of deliberate distortion of information (like the Roman Church in its time) to keep humanity in the “right” direction. Let us hope that the true rationality of the human being will triumph and enable civilization to follow the right path of development.