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Post by timoneill on Aug 18, 2011 4:37:25 GMT
In a recent manifestation of the endless romanticisation of Galileo a commenter (who is actually pretty reasonable) has claimed that by the time of the Galileo Trial "only the Jesuits still clung to geocentrism" and heliocentric models had carried the day in the scientific realm otherwise.
This is, I realise, nonsense - unless Tycho Brahe and his followers were all Jesuits. But before I respond I'm interested in any references or citations that talk about exactly who believed what by that stage. My understanding was that Copernicanist heliocentrism was only one of several competing models and had minority support.
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Post by fortigurn on Aug 18, 2011 5:23:26 GMT
My understanding was that Copernicanist heliocentrism was only one of several competing models and had minority support. That's my understanding also. Although support was slow in growing, by 1600 it had support from Maestlin, Rothmann, Kepler, Galileo, Harriott, Bruno, Digges, Gilbert (all astronomers, some also mathematicians), Rheticus, and Stevin (mathematicians).[1] [2] It started being accepted widely some 60 years after it was proposed, the slow uptake being partly because there was as yet no definitive evidence proving the theory correct.[3] Throughout the 17th century support for the Copernican system grew immensely.[4] [5] By the last quarter of the 17th century, the heliocentrism was established as the new scholarly consensus, just 157 years after it was first proposed.[6] [7] ________________________ [1] 'To be precise: we can identify only ten Copernicans between 1543 and 1600; of these, seven were Protestants, the others Catholic. Four were German (Rheticus, Michael Maestlin, Christopher Rothmann, and Joahnnes Kepler); the Italians and English contributed two each (Galileo and Giordano Bruno; Thomas Digges and Thomas Harriot); and the Spaniards and Dutch but one each (Diego de Zuniga; Simon Stevin).', Westman, 'The Copernicans and the Churches', in Hellyer, 'The Scientific Revolution: the essential readings', p. 54 (2003). [2] 'The first Copernican theory, [of the tides] which postulated a force of attraction between the moon and earth's oceans, was devised by William Gilbert (1580-1600) and restated by Johannes Kepler (1609);', Hooper, 'Seventeenth-Century Theories of the Tides as a Gauge of Scientific Change', ', in Palmerino & Thijssen, 'The Reception of the Galilean science of motion in seventeenth-century Europe', pp. 199-200 (2004). [3] 'We need to remember that it remained a hypothesis without physical verification until the mid-eighteenth century.', Brague, 'The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam', p. 218 (2009). [4] 'Castelli the Benedictine and, later, Bonaventura Cavalieri, a Jesuate, were faithful Galilean disciples. Zuniga at Salamanca had been an Augustinian. Now, in January 1615, came unexpected support for the Copernican position from a member of the reformed Carmelite order in Naples, Paolo Foscarini (1580-1616).', Westman, 'The Copernicans and the Churches', in Hellyer, 'The Scientific Revolution: the essential readings', p. 67 (2003); Castelli and Cavalieri were mathematicians. [5] 'It was also along such lines that Seth Ward argued in 1654 for a nearly universal acceptance of the new astronomy at Oxford: there is not one man here, who is so farre astronomicall, as to be able to calculate an eclipse, who hath not received the Copernican system (as it was left by him, or as improved by Kepler, Bullialdus, our own professor [Ward], and others of the ellipticall way) either as an opinion, or at leastwise, as the most intelligible, and most convenient hypothesis.', Tyacke, 'Seventeenth-century Oxford', pp. 388-289 (1997). [6] 'By then, [the early 1670s] the state of Kepler's three laws and the perceived difficulties with them was broadly as follows. Heliocentrism had in the meantime become not only the standard computational basis for accurate prediction but also the accepted conception of the universe in the view of both the experts and most others engaged in the creative pursuits of nature-knowledge, notably adherents of kinetic corpuscularianism (p. 396).', Cohen, 'How Modern Science Came Into the World: Four Civilizations, One 17th-Century', p. 304 (2011). [7] 'By the end of the seventeenth century, many Protestant scientists were Copernicans, and many Protestant theologians seemed indifferent to the issue.', Ferngren, 'Science and religion: a historical introduction', p. 122 (2002). |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Aug 18, 2011 14:01:05 GMT
I was taught that at the time the Dialogo was released the majority view preferred hybrid systems like the Tychonic system because they didn't require a stellar parallax and were consistent with the phases of Venus. I guess that the person could stick to calling the hybrid systems geocentrism but it is pretty arguable and geo-heliocentrism is a better term anyway since it avoids the semantics of whether it was 'really' heliocentrism or geocentrism. Unfortunately the book that was recommended for the course was rather old-fashioned and often took a different line. The citations below are not exact but maybe it helps: "By the last decade of the [16th] century, serious astronomers fell into three categories: those loyal to the Ptolemaic order of the universe but willing to introduce Copernican mathematical techniques; those who had adopted some variation of the geo-heliocentric framework; and those who were confirmed Copernicans. The last category was the smallest, numbering only Mästlin and Rothmann among established figures." (p.31) "At the time of Tycho's burial in 1601, the first phase of the Copernican revolution was over, with the paradoxical result that although almost no recognized astronomer was actually a Copernican (even Kepler had yet to distinguish himself), Copernican technical astronomy has become indispensable. The true successor to the Ptolemaic theory was the Tychonic, a view at once radical in its rejection of Aristotelian physics and conservative in its retention of the geocentric perspective." (p. 31-32) "It [the Tychonic system] was almost entirely ignored by Galileo Galilei, perhaps unfairly so, for at the time when Galileo's Dialogue was published (1632) it was not the Ptolemaic system, but rather the Tychonic, that was widely discussed as the alternative to the Copernican." (p. 33) Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics, Part A, Taton and Wilson, 1989 The pages can be viewed on Google Books. |
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Post by timoneill on Aug 18, 2011 20:47:44 GMT
I was taught that at the time the Dialogo was released the majority view preferred hybrid systems like the Tychonic system because they didn't require a stellar parallax and were consistent with the phases of Venus. I guess that the person could stick to calling the hybrid systems geocentrism but it is pretty arguable and geo-heliocentrism is a better term anyway since it avoids the semantics of whether it was 'really' heliocentrism or geocentrism. Unfortunately the book that was recommended for the course was rather old-fashioned and often took a different line. The citations below are not exact but maybe it helps: "By the last decade of the [16th] century, serious astronomers fell into three categories: those loyal to the Ptolemaic order of the universe but willing to introduce Copernican mathematical techniques; those who had adopted some variation of the geo-heliocentric framework; and those who were confirmed Copernicans. The last category was the smallest, numbering only Mästlin and Rothmann among established figures." (p.31) "At the time of Tycho's burial in 1601, the first phase of the Copernican revolution was over, with the paradoxical result that although almost no recognized astronomer was actually a Copernican (even Kepler had yet to distinguish himself), Copernican technical astronomy has become indispensable. The true successor to the Ptolemaic theory was the Tychonic, a view at once radical in its rejection of Aristotelian physics and conservative in its retention of the geocentric perspective." (p. 31-32) "It [the Tychonic system] was almost entirely ignored by Galileo Galilei, perhaps unfairly so, for at the time when Galileo's Dialogue was published (1632) it was not the Ptolemaic system, but rather the Tychonic, that was widely discussed as the alternative to the Copernican." (p. 33) Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics, Part A, Taton and Wilson, 1989 The pages can be viewed on Google Books. Thanks - I've used that quote in my reply here. Anyone else who wants to put a cat amongst the pigeons there, feel free. |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Aug 19, 2011 8:57:31 GMT
There were some parts in his story that are just odd. I don't know about the Lutheran countries, but when Descartes had promoted his philosophy it was noticed by the Dutch theologian Voetius and his followers who lumped it together with Copernicanism and tried to get the States to condemn it. It was a controversial and polarised issue in the Reformed Church well into the eightteenth century and was strongly tied to political circumstances that had arisen after the Peace of Münster as well as personal motivations. "The Voetians - who supported the House of Orange - and their opponent - who favoured the State's regime - had many reasons to resent each other. Very succinctly stated, they did not have a quarrel because they disagreed on such issues as Copernicanism, they had a disagreement because they had a quarrel." (p. 319) Rienk Vermij, The Calvinist Copernicans. The reception of the new astronomy in the
Dutch Republic, 1575-1750, Part IV. Biblical authority and Christian freedom: Copernicanism and the Bible, 2002, History of Science and Scholarship in the Netherlands, volume IEh? Does this person know that the reference frame in which the Earth rotates around the Sun and the reference frame in which the Sun rotates around the Earth are physically equivalent?  In any case attempts to make both work would have failed miserably until Newton's Principia as you said so it is not as if Copernicanism fared a lot better until then. |
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Post by merkavah12 on Aug 29, 2011 22:37:37 GMT
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Post by ignorantianescia on Aug 29, 2011 22:47:23 GMT
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Post by unkleE on Aug 30, 2011 0:11:57 GMT
Don't worry about the content - just enjoy the graphic design! |
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Post by himself on Aug 30, 2011 20:26:22 GMT
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