Why were people before Copernicus unable to find out what he found out when people coming after him could prove his ideas were correct?

Answer 1

because before Copernicus there was not much technology and later on in time there was more discoveries of existence of technology. which means people were able to prove his ideas. <3

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Copernicus had a theory of the way the planets move around that had some advantages over the older Ptolemaic system which had the Earth at the centre. Copernicus had the Sun at the centre, which caused problems with the church when Galileo took the theory up and promoted it as the truth.

Tycho Brahe also produced a system with the Earth at the centre. Tycho's system removed some of the faults in the Ptolemaic theory, specifically the full range of Venus's phases.

Finally, the theory that lasted until modern times was that of Johannes Kepler (1609). He used the new idea of elliptical orbits, and also followed Copernicus in placing the Sun at the centre. Kepler's theory was generally accepted after Newton's expanation of elliptical orbits in terms of the theory of gravity.