It is now well-known that we earthlings are not at the centre of the universe. Our Earth is a planet that orbits the Sun, which in turn orbits the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. And the Milky Way is one of millions of galaxies full of stars and planets. However, in times gone by, such talk was unheard of! Everyone knew that the Earth was the centre of everything. The Sun, Moon, stars and planets revolve around us!

Here you can see two models from that period. They are geocentric: the Earth is in the middle, and the models show how the other objects revolve around us. It was astronomers who proved to us that this can't be true. Galileo Galilei observed that planets made very strange movements which couldn't be explained in a geocentric model. However, the heliocentric model (where the Sun is regarded as the centre) previously proposed by Copernicus, was able to explain these movements!

Copernicus and Galileo received an awful lot of resistance to their world view; even being persecuted for it. But what they did is what all scientists do nowadays. With everything, we ask ourselves: does this work? Is this the whole truth, or is there more going on?

This curiosity is what still drives science every day. One of the main objectives of a student society such as De Leidsche Flesch is to encourage students to consult and discuss with each other, so that we always continue to critically reflect!