Question

______ discovered that the earth revolves around the sun.
a) Galileo
b) Kepler
c) Ptolemy
d) Copernicus

Answer 1

Hint: This revolutionary discovery was made in the renaissance period, the renaissance, meaning ‘revival’ or ‘rebirth’ can be summed up as placing humans at the center of everything. Now this also motivated the Polish discoverer of the theory talked above to reconsider the placement of heavenly bodies, which led him to think that the sun might be the center of the universe.

Complete Step by Step answer: Heliocentrism is defined as the concept which consists of an astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Universe. Traditionally, with due respect to the avid concept of geocentrism, which placed earth at the center of the universe, heliocentrism was a concept that challenged it.
 Let us recall the contributions of each of these given legendary scientists one by one and eventually deduce the correct alternative.
Option ‘a’, Galileo Galili was an astronomer, engineer and physicist of Italian origin. He is also often referred to as the ‘Father of observational astronomy, scientific method, modern physics and modern science’. He is known for discovering phases of Venus, craters of the moon, stars of the Milky Way and the moons of Jupiter.
Option b, Kepler, was of German origin and discovered that the Earth and planets travel about the sun in elliptical orbits. He gave three fundamental laws of planetary motion. He also did important work in optics and geometry.
Option c, Ptolemy, an Egyptian astronomer and mathematician, was the one who gave the geocentric theory.
And lastly, option d, Copernicus, born in Poland, is well known to give the Heliocentric theory and was a very well known scientist of the renaissance period.

Hence, option d is the correct answer.

Note: Copernicus also gave the very famous Gresham's Law and the Quantity theory of money. Although quite correct, his heliocentric theory was rejected at that time because the scholars were sure that the earth is not rotating.