Great Astronomers by Robert Stawell Ball (best ereader for students .txt) 📖
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the purpose of deciphering the celestial decrees regarding the
fate of man which the heavenly luminaries were designed to
announce.
Kepler threw himself with characteristic ardour into even this
fantastic phase of the labours of the astronomical professor; he
diligently studied the rules of astrology, which the fancies of
antiquity had compiled. Believing sincerely as he did in the
connection between the aspect of the stars and the state of human
affairs, he even thought that he perceived, in the events of
his own life, a corroboration of the doctrine which affirmed the
influence of the planets upon the fate of individuals.
[PLATE: KEPLER’S SYSTEM OF REGULAR SOLIDS.]
But quite independently of astrology there seem to have been many
other delusions current among the philosophers of Kepler’s time.
It is now almost incomprehensible how the ablest men of a few
centuries ago should have entertained such preposterous notions,
as they did, with respect to the system of the universe. As an
instance of what is here referred to, we may cite the
extraordinary notion which, under the designation of a discovery,
first brought Kepler into fame. Geometers had long known that
there were five, but no more than five, regular solid figures.
There is, for instance, the cube with six sides, which is, of
course, the most familiar of these solids. Besides the cube there
are other figures of four, eight, twelve, and twenty sides
respectively. It also happened that there were five planets, but
no more than five, known to the ancients, namely, Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. To Kepler’s lively imaginations this
coincidence suggested the idea that the five regular solids
corresponded to the five planets, and a number of fancied
numerical relations were adduced on the subject. The absurdity of
this doctrine is obvious enough, especially when we observe that,
as is now well known, there are two large planets, and a host of
small planets, over and above the magical number of the regular
solids. In Kepler’s time, however, this doctrine was so far from
being regarded as absurd, that its announcement was hailed as a
great intellectual triumph. Kepler was at once regarded with
favour. It seems, indeed, to have been the circumstance which
brought him into correspondence with Tycho Brahe. By its means
also he became known to Galileo.
The career of a scientific professor in those early days appears
generally to have been marked by rather more striking vicissitudes
than usually befall a professor in a modern university. Kepler
was a Protestant, and as such he had been appointed to his
professorship at Gratz. A change, however, having taken place in
the religious belief entertained by the ruling powers of the
University, the Protestant professors were expelled. It seems
that special influence having been exerted in Kepler’s case on
account of his exceptional eminence, he was recalled to Gratz
and reinstated in the tenure of his chair. But his pupils had
vanished, so that the great astronomer was glad to accept a post
offered him by Tycho Brahe in the observatory which the latter had
recently established near Prague.
On Tycho’s death, which occurred soon after, an opening
presented itself which gave Kepler the opportunity his genius
demanded. He was appointed to succeed Tycho in the position of
imperial mathematician. But a far more important point, both for
Kepler and for science, was that to him was confided the use of
Tycho’s observations. It was, indeed, by the discussion of
Tycho’s results that Kepler was enabled to make the discoveries
which form such an important part of astronomical history.
Kepler must also be remembered as one of the first great
astronomers who ever had the privilege of viewing celestial
bodies through a telescope. It was in 1610 that he first held in
his hands one of those little instruments which had been so
recently applied to the heavens by Galileo. It should, however,
be borne in mind that the epoch-making achievements of Kepler did
not arise from any telescopic observations that he made, or,
indeed, that any one else made. They were all elaborately deduced
from Tycho’s measurements of the positions of the planets,
obtained with his great instruments, which were unprovided with
telescopic assistance.
To realise the tremendous advance which science received from
Kepler’s great work, it is to be understood that all the
astronomers who laboured before him at the difficult subject of
the celestial motions, took it for granted that the planets must
revolve in circles. If it did not appear that a planet moved in a
fixed circle, then the ready answer was provided by Ptolemy’s
theory that the circle in which the planet did move was itself in
motion, so that its centre described another circle.
When Kepler had before him that wonderful series of observations
of the planet, Mars, which had been accumulated by the
extraordinary skill of Tycho, he proved, after much labour, that
the movements of the planet refused to be represented in a
circular form. Nor would it do to suppose that Mars revolved in
one circle, the centre of which revolved in another circle. On no
such supposition could the movements of the planets be made to
tally with those which Tycho had actually observed. This led to
the astonishing discovery of the true form of a planet’s orbit.
For the first time in the history of astronomy the principle was
laid down that the movement of a planet could not be represented
by a circle, nor even by combinations of circles, but that it
could be represented by an elliptic path. In this path the sun is
situated at one of those two points in the ellipse which are known
as its foci.
[PLATE: KEPLER.]
Very simple apparatus is needed for the drawing of one those
ellipses which Kepler has shown to possess such astonishing
astronomical significance. Two pins are stuck through a sheet of
paper on a board, the point of a pencil is inserted in a loop of
string which passes over the pins, and as the pencil is moved
round in such a way as to keep the string stretched, that
beautiful curve known as the ellipse is delineated, while the
positions of the pins indicate the two foci of the curve. If the
length of the loop of string is unchanged then the nearer the pins
are together, the greater will be the resemblance between the
ellipse and the circle, whereas the more the pins are separated
the more elongated does the ellipse become. The orbit of a great
planet is, in general, one of those ellipses which approaches a
nearly circular form. It fortunately happens, however, that the
orbit of Mars makes a wider departure from the circular form than
any of the other important planets. It is, doubtless, to this
circumstance that we must attribute the astonishing success of
Kepler in detecting the true shape of a planetary orbit. Tycho’s
observations would not have been sufficiently accurate to have
exhibited the elliptic nature of a planetary orbit which, like
that of Venus, differed very little from a circle.
The more we ponder on this memorable achievement the more striking
will it appear. It must be remembered that in these days we know
of the physical necessity which requires that a planet shall
revolve in an ellipse and not in any other curve. But Kepler had
no such knowledge. Even to the last hour of his life he remained
in ignorance of the existence of any natural cause which ordained
that planets should follow those particular curves which geometers
know so well. Kepler’s assignment of the ellipse as the true form
of the planetary orbit is to be regarded as a brilliant guess, the
truth of which Tycho’s observations enabled him to verify. Kepler
also succeeded in pointing out the law according to which the
velocity of a planet at different points of its path could be
accurately specified. Here, again, we have to admire the sagacity
with which this marvellously acute astronomer guessed the deep
truth of nature. In this case also he was quite unprovided with
any reason for expecting from physical principles that such a law
as he discovered must be obeyed. It is quite true that Kepler had
some slight knowledge of the existence of what we now know as
gravitation. He had even enunciated the remarkable doctrine that
the ebb and flow of the tide must be attributed to the attraction
of the moon on the waters of the earth. He does not, however,
appear to have had any anticipation of those wonderful discoveries
which Newton was destined to make a little later, in which he
demonstrated that the laws detected by Kepler’s marvellous acumen
were necessary consequences of the principle of universal
gravitation.
[PLATE: SYMBOLICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEM.]
To appreciate the relations of Kepler and Tycho it is necessary to
note the very different way in which these illustrious astronomers
viewed the system of the heavens. It should be observed that
Copernicus had already expounded the true system, which located
the sun at the centre of the planetary system. But in the days of
Tycho Brahe this doctrine had not as yet commanded universal
assent. In fact, the great observer himself did not accept the
new views of Copernicus. It appeared to Tycho that the earth not
only appeared to be the centre of things celestial, but that it
actually was the centre. It is, indeed, not a little remarkable
that a student of the heavens so accurate as Tycho should have
deliberately rejected the Copernican doctrine in favour of the
system which now seems so preposterous. Throughout his great
career, Tycho steadily observed the places of the sun, the moon,
and the planets, and as steadily maintained that all those bodies
revolved around the earth fixed in the centre. Kepler,
however, had the advantage of belonging to the new school. He
utilised the observations of Tycho in developing the great
Copernican theory whose teaching Tycho stoutly resisted.
Perhaps a chapter in modern science may illustrate the
intellectual relation of these great men. The
revolution produced by Copernicus in the doctrine of
the heavens has often been likened to the revolution
which the Darwinian theory produced in the views held by
biologists as to life on this earth. The Darwinian theory did not
at first command universal assent even among those naturalists
whose lives had been devoted with the greatest success to the
study of organisms. Take, for instance, that great naturalist,
Professor Owen, by whose labours vast extension has been given to
our knowledge of the fossil animals which dwelt on the earth in
past ages. Now, though Owens researches were intimately connected
with the great labours of Darwin, and afforded the latter material
for his epoch-making generalization, yet Owen deliberately refused
to accept the new doctrines. Like Tycho, he kept on rigidly
accumulating his facts under the influence of a set of ideas as to
the origin of living forms which are now universally admitted to
be erroneous. If, therefore, we liken Darwin to Copernicus, and
Owen to Tycho, we may liken the biologists of the present day to
Kepler, who interpreted the results of accurate observation upon
sound theoretical principles.
In reading the works of Kepler in the light of our modern
knowledge we are often struck by the extent to which his
perception of the sublimest truths in nature was associated with
the most extravagant errors and absurdities. But, of course, it
must be remembered that he wrote in an age in which even the
rudiments of science, as we now understand it, were almost
entirely unknown.
It may well be doubted whether any joy experienced by mortals is
more genuine than that which rewards the successful searcher after
natural truths. Every science-worker, be his efforts ever so
humble,
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