Reviewer in Physics SCIENTISTS: 1. Aristarchus of Samos (310 BCE ca.

. 290 BCE) - He presented the first known model that placed the sun at the center of the known universe. He was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but he identified the "central fire" with the Sun, and put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun. 2. Aristotle (384 BC 322 BC) The motion of all objects had a purpose, the animal was moving to some place it would rather be, the motion was directed by the animals will. He asserted that heavier things fall faster, the speed being proportional to the weight, and the speed of fall of a given object depends inversely on the density of the medium it is falling through, so, for example, the same body will fall twice as fast through a medium of half the density. 3. Cladius Ptolemy (AD 90 AD 168) He propounded the geocentric theory in a form that prevailed for 1400 years. 4. Nicolas Copernicus (1473 1543) He liberated us from the earth centric view of the universe. He discovered that the earth orbits the sun. 5. Tycho Brahe (1546 1601) He made the most precise observations that had yet been made by devising the best instruments available before the invention of the telescope. 6. Galileo Galilei (1564 1642) He was the first to use the telescope to study the heavens systematically. 7. Johannes Kepler (1571 1630) His three laws of planetary motion can be described as follows: The path of the planets about the sun is elliptical in shape, with the center of the sun being located at one focus. (The Law of Ellipses) An imaginary line drawn from the center of the sun to the center of the planet will sweep out equal areas in equal intervals of time. (The Law of Equal Areas) The ratio of the squares of the periods of any two planets is equal to the ratio of the cubes of their average distances from the sun. (The Law of Harmonies) 8. Isaac Newton (1642 1727) He formulated the laws of motion and the universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries 9. Henry Cavendish (1731 1810) He was distinguished for his accuracy and precision and the first to measure the force of gravity between masses in a laboratory and to produce an accurate value for Earths density. Using his torsion balance invention, he was able to measure gravitational constant, G. 10. Albert Einstein (1879 1955) He published three important articles and thus became the father of modern physics because of the relativity theory.