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Kepler (1571-1630) and the end of the harmony of the spheres


Kepler, after six years of meticulous study on the orbit of Mars and nine thousand large pages of calculations plotted with his fine writing (1) gets to find out, based on the assumption of circular orbits of the prevailing planets, creating a discrepancy of eight minutes between the positions of Mars and those actually observed that Mars would instead have to deal according to his calculations.

" ... if I thought they could ignore those eight minutes, I would have accommodated as befitted my guess. But it was not allowed to ignore them, those eight minutes pointed the way for a comprehensive reform of astronomy ..." (2)

eight minutes of the episode convinced Kepler that your specific problem - the orbit of Mars - was destined to be insoluble, unless we abandon the tenets of astronomy: the uniform motion, which had already discarded, and now also needed to get rid of circular motion.

" The conclusion is quite simply that the way the world is not a circle - it is curved on both sides and expands in the other two. This curve is called an oval. The orbit is not a circle but an oval shape . "(3)

With the incredible modesty that characterizes certain scientists, Kepler did not feel a hero in having destroyed the dream of the 'harmony of the spheres." Indeed , all you had to say in his defense was:

" I clean the Augean stables of astronomy cycles and spirals, and I left behind me a shitload of manure ." (4)
This
shitload of manure - the motion not uniform circular orbits not - could be explained and justified only by arguments of physics, and geometry (5).


PS At the moment everything what I have available at the handwriting is the description of "fine writing" (as you can imagine).


1-5 Adapted from A. Koestler, The act of creation , Astrolabe Publishing House, pp. 118-119.

Things Remembered Heart Remote

Galileo Galilei and experimental physics
























... Galileo is completely and frighteningly contemporary in philosophy consistent mechanistic. Hence his contemptuous refusal, in one sentence, Kepler's explanation of how the tides due to the attraction of the moon. " Referring to Kepler, Galileo writes: " which, of acute intellect and free, and in his hand the motions attributed to the Earth, has also given ear predominates and agree to the moon over the water, and occult properties, and similar childhood. (1)


In this regard, in terms of handwriting can be seen that the combination is different for physics experimental and theoretical.
The ability to patiently experiment on the movements of the pendulum, the free fall and descent of bodies on an inclined plane and a hundred other issues examined by the great scientist, requires a person with a lot of memory material, typical of the tightness of letters and letters, are able to carefully observe all the different aspects of the legislation, including the more subtle variations that can occur in response to slight changes in environmental or experimental. So a strong unequal methods, intuition very original, but also the narrowness of letters and letters, which supports fully the personality in the strict observance, and therefore interpretation: no concessions, no mental flights, but the facts, just as intended coupling material. And you can understand why, for him, the very abstract idea for its time, a force (but what power?) That connects the moon tides may be too mystical for an experimental physicist with his training. Instead
theoretical physics requires a width of letters between the letter and at least on average and adequate width between words (Newton, for example), to have a mind fascinated by speculative formulations, rational and conceptual, as well as the ability to grasp the internal contradictions that may be present in the theoretical system developed.


1. Arthur Koestler, The act of creation , publisher Astrolabe, Rome 1975, p.. 418