The Renaissance was a cultural movement involving a renewal of learning, development in infrastructure, and a gradual reform in education. The Renaissance may be considered as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. This significant period of time was when people began to think outside of the church, the traditional way of thinking, which led to the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution changed the way people thought about the physical world around them. This led scientists to question traditional beliefs about the workings of the universe. The church, on the other hand, wanted to hold their positions that the Earth was flat because admitting that they had been interpreting the Bible wrong could possibly cause people to wonder what else they may have been wrong about. The ideas from the Scientific Revolution challenged traditional authority with the help from Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. The scientific revolution changed the way people thought about the physical world around them.
Copernicus began to think outside the traditional way of thinking, which is what the church believes, when he created a theory that forever changed the way people believed in the church. Copernicus was a Polish astronomer that studied planetary movements for more than 25 years and created the Heliocentric Theory, which stated the the sun stood at the center of the universe and the Earth revolves around it. The Catholic Church strongly believed in the geocentric theory, which stated that the Earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it, and rejected Copernicus' theory because it contradicted their religious views. This theory challenged traditional authority because this went against the Catholic Church's beliefs. Copernicus feared the consequences of this theory that went against the Church's beliefs, so he did not publish his findings in On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres until his students did upon his death in 1543.