Three revolutions in cosmical science from the telescope to the Sputnik

Three hundred years ago, what is usually called the Copernican revolution caused the transition from the geocentric to the heliocentric cosmology. The revolution was in reality caused by the introduction of the telescope. During the following 300 years, increasingly sophisticated telescopes have explored a rapidly increasing region of our cosmic environment. Newtonian theory dominated the mechanics during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the beginning of the 20th century, its limitations in three respects became obvious with such important consequences that they have motivated the authors to speak about a second revolution. This paper discusses how quantum mechanics shows the Newtonian mechanics was not valid for atom-size phenomena; the theory of relativity shows that Newtonian mechanics did not hold for velocities approaching the velocity of light; and during the 19th century, studies of electric currents in gases showed that electromagnetic phenomena often produced forces that were more important than mechanical forces