Geo-heliocentric system of the world

The movement of the Sun, Mercury and Venus, according to the treatise of Theon from Smyrna "The exposition of mathematical objects useful in reading Plato"

Astronomers of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance

Outlines of the geo-heliocentric system have been encountered repeatedly in the history of science. The ancient Greek astronomer Theon from Smyrna in the II century BC. e. and the Roman philosopher Martian Capella in the 5th century AD e. described a variant of the geocentric system in which the Earth is motionless, but Mercury and Venus revolve around the Sun (although with it - and around the Earth). Presumably, this hypothesis dates back to Heraclides of Pontus (IV century BC) ^[4] . The basis for this assumption is the words of the Latin author Chalkidius (IV century A.D. ) from his " Commentary on the Platonic" Timaeus ":

Finally, Heraclides of Pontius, describing the circle of Lucifer [Venus], as such of the Sun, and giving two circles one center and one middle, showed that Lucifer is sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Sun. He says that the positions of the Sun, Moon, Lucifer and all planets, wherever they are, are determined by a line passing through the centers of the Earth and this celestial body ^[5] .

Of the planets, only Lucifer is mentioned here (one of the oldest names for Venus), but from the context it is clear that all the same applies to Mercury. The phrase “sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Sun” can be understood in this way: sometimes Venus is farther from the Earth than the Sun, sometimes closer. Perhaps Archimedes also adhered to this view, believing that the Sun and Mars revolving around the orbit, in which case the orbit should have covered the Earth, and not lie between it and the Sun, as in the case of Mercury and Venus ^[6] .

The geo-heliocentric model of the movement of Mercury and Venus survived in European countries until the late Middle Ages. The letter of a certain astronomer (whose name is unknown) to the emperor of the Latin Empire, Baldwin II de Courtenay, dates back to the 13th century: “The circles of Mercury and Venus ... move around the Sun, and they have the center of the Sun in their centers” ^[7] . The 14th-century natural philosopher Jean Buridan writes in his comments on the Aristotelian treatise " On Heaven " when discussing the question of why the Sun, Mercury and Venus have the same (one-year) periods of movement along the zodiac:

Some answer that this is because these three planets are located in the same sphere, although inside them they have different epicycles and eccents ... This may be true, because when they [Mercury and Venus] are in the apocenters of their eccents , they are higher than the Sun, and when they are at opposite points, they are lower than the Sun ^[8] .

It describes the idea that the epicycles of Mercury and Venus are in the same sphere as the epicycles of the Sun, and it is clear from the presentation that these planets revolve around the Sun. Buridan himself calls this configuration "probable." However, he finds another solution to the problem of the equality of the periods of movement of the three luminaries: “the same attitude of moving intelligentsia to moving spheres” ^[9] .

At the beginning of the 16th century (1501), the Italian mathematician Giorgio Valla mentioned the rotation of Mercury and Venus around the Sun ^[10] . In 1573, a similar world system was published by the German scientist Valentin Naboth ^[11] with reference to Marcian Capella.

Perhaps the geo-heliocentric system (already for all five planets) was considered by Samarkand scientists at the Ulugbek Observatory . So, the famous astronomer Kazi-zade ar-Rumi (teacher of Ulugbek , XV century) wrote:

Some scientists believe that the sun is in the middle of the orbits of the planets. That planet, which moves more slowly than another, is further removed from the Sun. Her distance will be greater. The slowest moving planet is at the greatest distance from the Sun ^[12] .

It has been suggested that the geo-heliocentric system was also developed by the Indian astronomer Nilakanta from the Kerala school in the 15th century ^{[13] [14]} . In his Ariabhatavahyaz , commentary on Ariabhatya , he proposed a model where Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn revolve around the Sun, and it, in turn, around the Earth; most astronomers of the Kerala school accepted his model.

Tycho Brahe

In the XVI century, in the work of Copernicus " On the conversion of the celestial spheres " (1543), the heliocentric system of the world was proposed. However, it aroused objections from some scientists. Objections were raised from the point of view of religion, astronomy and Aristotelian natural philosophy (see criticism of Copernicanism ). For example, Tycho Brahe , the largest astronomer of the late 16th century, wrote in his treatise “On Recent Phenomena in the Heavenly World” ( De Mundi aeteri recentioribus phaenomenis , 1588, Uraniborg ) ^{[15] [16]} :

The Earth’s body is large, slow and unsuitable for movement ... I am without any doubt of the opinion that the Earth we inhabit occupies the center of the Universe, which corresponds to the generally accepted views of ancient astronomers and natural philosophers, as evidenced by the Holy Scriptures above, and does not go round in a year as Copernicus wished.

Another important argument in favor of the immobility of the Earth, Brahe considered the absence of stellar parallaxes , although the correct explanation of this fact (remoteness of stars) was already given by Copernicus.

In this work, Tycho Brahe outlined and substantiated in detail the geo-heliocentric system of the world, which he considered his greatest achievement. The earth in the Tycho Brahe world system was absolutely motionless, without performing either translational or axial rotation . The relationship between the distances of the planets from the Sun was exactly the same as in the Copernican system. The stars were located just behind Saturn. An interesting feature of this system was the intersection of the circles of Mars and the Sun. Quietly considered this an additional argument against the existence of solid celestial spheres.

It is assumed that the idea of ​​developing a new world system in Tycho Brahe came about around 1580, when German astronomer Paul Wittich visited his observatory on the island of Vienna ^[17] . The subject of Wittich's scientific interest was the geometric transformations of the Copernican system to a geocentric reference frame. In 1578, he built a diagram in which Mercury and Venus revolved around the Sun, and the epicycles of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have radii equal to the radius of the circle along which the Sun revolves around the Earth. From a geometric point of view, the Wittich model is completely equivalent to a geo-heliocentric system.

Almost simultaneously with Tycho, or a little later, the geo-heliocentric system was also proposed by several other astronomers, the most famous of which was Nicholas Reimers , also known as Ursus (although in the Ursus system the Earth rotated around its axis). Quietly immediately accused Ursus of plagiarism, claiming that he could see his drawings during his visit to Uraniborg in 1584. However, it cannot be ruled out that both astronomers put forward this idea independently of each other.

An influential critic of the geo-heliocentric system was the German astronomer Christoph Rothman , who held heliocentric views. In his correspondence with Tycho Brahe, Rothman raised the following objection: it is not clear what force could hold all the planets around the Sun if the Sun itself revolves around the Earth.

XVII century

After the death of Tycho Brahe (1601), Johannes Kepler , having studied his observations, discovered the laws of planetary motion , which finally buried the Ptolemy system, but were in principle compatible with the Tycho Brahe system. It was compatible with this system of the world and the discovery of the phases of Venus by Galileo Galilei .

Therefore, a number of prominent scientists recognized the right of the geo-heliocentric system to exist along with heliocentrism ( Giovanni Domenico Cassini , Ole Römer , Blaise Pascal ). The main propagandists of this system of the world were Jesuit scholars. So, the Italian astronomer, a member of the Jesuit order of Giambattista Riccioli, proposed his own version (1651): Jupiter and Saturn revolve around the Earth, other planets around the Sun ^[18] ; however, he later leaned towards the Tycho Brahe option. Another Italian Jesuit astronomer, Matteo Ricci , being the founder of the Jesuit mission in Beijing , introduced the Chinese geo-heliocentric system.

Longomontan , a student of Tycho Brahe, outlined the Brahe system in the monograph Astronomia Danica (1622). Unlike the teacher, Longomontan agreed with Ursus and recognized the diurnal rotation of the Earth, an indirect confirmation of which was the previously discovered rotation of the Sun. The book of Longomontan was very popular and was reprinted twice, most recently in 1663. Pierre Gassendi publicly supported the Longomontan system, although many historians consider him a hidden supporter of Copernicus ^[19] . French astronomer Jean -Baptiste Morin proposed combining the Longomontan model with Kepler's elliptical orbits and other laws (1650). In Catholic countries, the geo-heliocentric system remained popular until the beginning of the 18th century ^[20] .

Galileo and Kepler, by contrast, adhered to strict heliocentrism. The physicist Otto von Guericke believed that only the heliocentric system is able to explain the causes of planetary motion in terms of mechanics - in contrast to the Tycho Brahe world system ^[21] . Perhaps for this reason, almost all the major physicists of the 17th century, including Descartes , Huygens , Borelli , Hooke , Wallis , were supporters of heliocentrism.

At the end of the XVII - the beginning of the XVIII century, with the discovery by Newton of the law of universal gravitation and the laws of dynamics , as well as the discovery of the aberration of light from Bradley stars , the fact of the Earth's movement became almost universally accepted among astronomers, physicists, and generally educated people. The geo-heliocentric system of the world has become the property of history.

The “System of Tikhon Brahei” is mentioned in the author's notes to the “Satire I” by A. D. Cantemir (1729) ^[22] :

Astronomers have two opinions about the system (composition) of light. The first and the oldest is in which the Earth, instead of the focus of the whole system, exists and stands motionless, and the planets the Sun, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, the Moon and Venus revolve around it, each at a certain time. This system, according to Ptolemy, his thinker, is called Ptolemaic; there is another, which the Sun motionlessly (but turning around itself) delivers, and the other planets, between which there is the Earth, revolve around it at all times. The moon is no longer a planet, but the satellite is the Earth, around which it completes its circle in 29 days. This system was invented by Copernicus, a nemchin, and for this purpose it is called Copernicus. There is a third system, Tikhon Brahei, a Danes from the genus, which, however, is made up of the former two, more so he agrees with Ptolemy that the Earth stands and that the sun revolves around it, but with Copernicus all the other planets provide movement around the sun.

Lomonosov has an ironic fable beginning with the words:

Lomonosov further writes: "One was Copernicus, the other was known as Ptolemy." However, the lines “The Sun leads the planet with itself” clearly indicate that in reality Copernicus does not argue with Ptolemy , but with Tycho Brahe ^[23] .

American astronomer Peter D. Usher , professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania , published the hypothesis that Shakespeare’s Hamlet is an astronomical allegory. King Claudius, in his opinion, not in vain bears the same name as Ptolemy, who proposed a geocentric model. Hamlet is the Copernican Thomas Digges , while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (surnames mentioned in Tycho Brahe's family tree) embody Tycho's theory, which tried to reconcile the two systems ^{[24] [25]} .

• Astronomy of Ancient Greece
• Astronomy of the Islamic Middle Ages
• The geocentric system of the world
• Heliocentric system of the world
• Indian astronomy
• The history of the development of ideas about the universe
• Copernicus revolution

• White Yu. A. Tycho Brahe . - M .: Nauka, 1982.- 229 p. - (Scientific and biographical literature).
• Gurev G.A. Mixture of geocentrism and heliocentrism // World Systems. From ancient times to the present day . - M .: Moscow Worker, 1950.
• Dzhalalov G. D. Some remarkable statements by astronomers of the Samarkand observatory // Historical and astronomical research, vol. IV. - M. , 1958. - S. 381-386 .
• Eremeeva A.I. Astronomical picture of the world and its creators. - M .: Science, 1984.
• Eremeeva A.I., Tsitsin F.A. History of astronomy. - M .: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 1989. - S. 148-150 ..
• Zhitomirsky S.V. Antique astronomy and orphism . - M .: Janus-K, 2001.
• Kauffeld A. Defense of Otto von Guericke of the Nikolai Copernicus System // Historical and Astronomical Studies, vol. Xi. - M. , 1972. - S. 221—236 .
• Pannekoek A. History of Astronomy . - M .: Science, 1966.
• Dreyer J. L. E. History of the planetary systems from Thales to Kepler . - Cambridge University Press, 1906.
• Gingerich O., Westman RS The Wittich Connection: Conflict and Priority in Late Sixteenth-Century Cosmology // Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (New Series). - 1988. - Vol. 78, No. 7 . - P. i-viii + 1-148.
• Grant E. Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Kuhn TS The Copernican Revolution: planetary astronomy in the development of Western thought. - Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957.
• McColley G. Humanism and the history of astronomy // in: Toward Modern Science, ed. by RM Palter. - New York: The Noonday Press, 1961. - Vol. II. - P. 132-174.
• Ramasubramanian K. Model of planetary motion in the works of Kerala astronomers // Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of India. - 1998. - Vol. 66. - P. 11-31.
• Schofield C. The Tychonic and semi-Tychonic world systems // In: Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics. Part A: Tycho Brahe to Newton. The General History of Astronomy. Volume 2, R. Taton and C. Wilson (eds). - 1989 .-- P. 33-44.
• Van der Waerden B. L. On the motion of the planets according to Heraclides of Pontus // Arch. Internat. Hist. Sci. - 1978. - Vol. 28 (103). - P. 167-182.

• Animated Copernican and Tychonian orreries; click on "Copernican" or "Tychonian" in the lower right corner
• Duke D. Ancient Planetary Model Animations (see Tycho Brahe's Cosmology ) . Date of treatment October 14, 2012. Archived October 23, 2012.