Posted on 01/22/2009 2:48:03 PM PST by nickcarraway
Ping
If Brahe had lived a few years longer, he would have been able to use a telescope...all of his meticulous observations were made with the naked eye. But if he had lived longer, it might have been longer before Kepler had a chance to use his notes to make his discoveries--or maybe Kepler would never had a chance, and Mars' orbit would still be a circle with a lot of epicycles.
I remember learning about Tycho Brahe back in that Astronomy Class in the mid 1970s. The history of astronomy was very fascinating. I loved that Course for the first 2 classes.
We learned about Kepler, Newton, Galileo, and a host of others.
Then it got down to the physics.
Toughest Course that I ever took. I felt fortunate to pass that one. It was all, as I said above, fascinating to me though.
<Toughest Course that I ever took. I felt fortunate to pass that one.
Don’t you love courses like that? They just about kill you, but in the end, you’ve learned so much!
Are you guys trying to restore science to its rightful place on Free Republic?
 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · | ||
| Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · | ||
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks nickcarraway. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
I am.
Me too.
Kepler had means, motive and opportunity. No one benefitted as much from Tycho's death as Kepler. From Amazon:
Novelist Joshua Gilder (Ghost Image) and his wife, former TV producer and investigative reporter Anne-Lee Gilder, offer a startling twist on the story of the troubled relationship of Tycho Brahe and his assistant, Johannes Kepler-who together laid the foundation for modern astronomy-and Brahe's unexpected and suspicious death at age 54 in 1601. The cause of Brahe's death had been debated for 400 years, but in 1991, forensic study of remains of Brahe's hair discovered lethal levels of mercury in his system. Dismissing other medical explanations for the mercury levels, the Gilders conclude that Brahe was murdered by Kepler, whose own work on the three laws of planetary motion-laws that changed human understanding of the universe-would remain incomplete without Brahe's closely guarded observational data. The authors weave together the personal histories of Brahe and Kepler, as well as the political, religious and scientific debates that raged during their lives. They find evidence of Kepler's obsessive desire to obtain Brahe's observations in letters by the young scientist, whom they portray in 20th-century diagnostic terms as a sociopath, permanently scarred by an abusive childhood. The Gilders' portrait of Kepler is interesting, albeit unpleasant; they catalogue his penchant for fallings out, paranoia and scheming in off-putting detail, and the explanations of his early scientific theories, which were wrong and impenetrably dense, will not be of universal interest. The writing is professional but not noteworthy, and the Gilders occasionally stretch the inconclusive evidence into speculations too thin to persuade.Apparently that figure on the cover is a diagram of successive conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, of far more astrological than astronomical significance. I've always preferred the image of Tycho on the his mural quadrant, one of the most important astronomical instruments in history, ranking ahead, perhaps, of Galileo's telescope.
That happened to me once but I didn't die......
Read “Heavenly Intrigue”. Your bladder cannot burst from holding it in. Your bladder is as tough as leather; you’d wet yourself involuntarily long before it ever burst.
I have a broken heart too......
This is a diagram Johann Kepler made showing the beautiful geometric pattern formed by the cycle of Jupiter & Saturn conjunctions over the course of a millenniuim. Kepler, the brilliant astronomer and mathmatician who solved the age-old problem of planetary motion, was court astrologer to the Holy Roman Emperor, camp astrologer to a famous general, and specialized in astrological weather forecasts.
Notice that Kelper used astrological symbols for the Zodiacal signs, the book cover substitutes their Latin names.
why didn’t the clairvoyant dwarf save the other half of the act? Dwarf Hvenvy?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.