#1 A Brief History of Time - My Notes and Thoughts

Chapter 1: Our picture of the universe

1. History of our understandings of the universe

   1. Flat Earth theory

   2. 340 BC Aristotle - "Earth is a round sphere"

   3. Aristotle & Ptolemy - Earth is stationary and is the center of our solar system

   4. 1514 Nicholas Copernicus- Earth and the other planets orbit the sun, Kepler and Galilei publicly supported Nicholas' theory

   5. 1609 Galileo started observing the sky with a telescope, this blew death to Ptolemy's theory - Earth is not the center of our solar system

   6. 1687 Newton developed mathematics to analyze motions in space and time

   7. 1929 Hubble made the landmark observation- the universe is expanding

   8. Einstein's relative theory- space and time are related and are variable

2. The ultimate goal of science: to provide a single theory which describes the universe

   1. Today, scientists describe the universe in terms of 2 partial theories: the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics