Tychonic System

The Tychonic system (or Tychonian system) is a model of the Solar System published by Tycho
Brahe in the late 16th century, which combines what he saw as the mathematical benefits of
the Copernican system with the philosophical and "physical" benefits of the Ptolemaic system.
The model may have been inspired by Valentin Naboth and Paul Wittich,
a Silesian mathematician and astronomer. A similar model was implicit in the calculations a
century earlier by Nilakantha Somayaji of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics.

Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler used the observations of Tycho himself to demonstrate that the orbits of the
planets are ellipses and not circles, creating the modified Copernican system that ultimately
displaced both the Tychonic and Ptolemaic systems. However, the Tychonic system was very
influential in the late 16th and 17th centuries. In 1616, during the Galileo affair, the
papal Congregation of the Index banned all books advocating the Copernican system, including
works by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and other authors until 1758. The Tychonic system was an
acceptable alternative as it explained the observed phases of Venus with a static
Earth. Jesuit astronomers in China used it, as did a number of European scholars. Jesuits (such
as Clavius, Christoph Grienberger, Christoph Scheiner, Odo Van Maelcote) supported the
Tychonic system.
 Ptolemaic Geocentric System
In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, often exemplified specifically
by the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center.
Under the geocentric model, the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets all orbited Earth. The geocentric
model was the predominant description of the cosmos in many ancient civilizations, such as
those of Aristotle in Classical Greece and Ptolemy in Roman Egypt.

Two observations supported the idea that Earth was the center of the Universe:

1. First, from anywhere on Earth, the Sun appears to revolve around Earth once per day.
While the Moon and the planets have their own motions, they also appear to revolve
around Earth about once per day. The stars appeared to be fixed on a celestial
sphere rotating once each day about an axis through the geographic poles of Earth.
2. Second, Earth seems to be unmoving from the perspective of an earthbound observer; it
feels solid, stable, and stationary.
 The Copernican Model
As we discussed in the previous subunit, the Earth-centered model of the universe, refined by
Ptolemy, was set firmly in place in the early part of the first millennium. It was not until 1543
that it met serious competition in the Sun-centered model of Nicolas Copernicus.

Copernicus was born in 1473 in Poland and studied, among other subjects, mathematics and
astronomy. He is mainly remembered for formally introducing the idea that the Sun is the center
of our solar system. This heliocentric concept (sun-centered concept) was a radical idea for his
time. Nearly all contemporary astronomers had adopted the Greek Earth-centered model. It was
so radical a concept, in fact, that Copernicus waited until the year of his death to publish his
famous essay titled, “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.”

Copernicus had two main reasons for asserting that the Sun was the center of our solar system.

1. While the Ptolemaic model was very good at predicting the positions of the planets, it wasn't
precise, and over the centuries its predictions got worse and worse.

2. Copernicus didn't like the fact that the Ptolemaic model had big epicycles to explain the
retrograde motions of the planets. He knew that this could be explained instead by having the
Earth also moving around the Sun.

The true motion of the planets around the Sun is not uniform circular motion, so Copernicus'
model still needed to have epicycles. He had 1500 years of post-Ptolemy data to work with, and
needed quite a lot of epicycles to make a new set of accurate predictions for the motions of the
planets.

The main simplification of the Copernican model was that the retrograde loops of the planets as
seen from the Earth occur naturally as a result of the Earth's motion combined with the motions
of the planets.You worked on this problem in the second part of Activity Two. Here are some
illustrations to consider.
 Distance to the Sun (lunar dichotomy)
The only known surviving work usually attributed to Aristarchus, On the Sizes and
Distances of the Sun and Moon, is based on a geocentric world view. It has
historically been read as stating that the angle subtended by the Sun's diameter is
two degrees, but Archimedes states in The Sand Reckoner that Aristarchus had a
value of ½ degree, which is much closer to the actual average value of 32' or 0.53
degrees. The discrepancy may come from a misinterpretation of what unit of
measure was meant by a certain Greek term in the text of Aristarchus.

Aristarchus claimed that at half moon (first or last quarter moon), the angle
between the Sun and Moon was 87°. He might have proposed 87° as a lower
bound, since gauging the lunar terminator's deviation from linearity to one degree
of accuracy is beyond the unaided human ocular limit (with that limit being about
three degrees of accuracy). Aristarchus is known to have also studied light and
vision.
 Heliocentrism
Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around
the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Historically, heliocentrism was opposed
to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around
the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos,[1] but at
least in the medieval world, Aristarchus's heliocentrism attracted little attention—possibly
because of the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic Era.[b]

It was not until the 16th century that a mathematical model of a heliocentric system
was presented, by the Renaissance mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic cleric Nicolaus
Copernicus, leading to the Copernican Revolution. In the following century, Johannes
Kepler introduced elliptical orbits, and Galileo Galilei presented supporting observations made
using a telescope.

With the observations of William Herschel, Friedrich Bessel, and other astronomers, it was
realized that the Sun, while near the barycenter of the Solar System, was not at any center of the
universe.
 Aristotle’s Model of Communication
Aristotle Model is mainly focused on speaker and speech. It can be broadly divided
into 5 primary elements: Speaker, Speech, Occasion, Audience and Effect.

The Aristotle’s communication model is a speaker centered model as the speaker

has the most important role in it and is the only one active. It is the speaker’s role
to deliver a speech to the audience. The role of the audience is
passive, influenced by the speech. This makes the communication process one
way, from speaker to receiver.

The speaker must organize the speech beforehand, according to the target
audience and situation (occasion). The speech must be prepared so that the
audience be persuaded or influenced from the speech.

He believed “Rhetoric” is the study of communication and persuasion and different

message or speech should be made for different audiences at different situations to
get desired effects or to establish a propaganda. This model was highly used to
develop public speaking skills and create a propaganda at that time so, it is less
focused on intrapersonal or interpersonal communication.
 Pythagorean Astronomical System
An astronomical system positing that the Earth, Moon, Sun and planets revolve
around an unseen "Central Fire" was developed in the 5th century BC and has been
attributed to the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus. The system has been called
"the first coherent system in which celestial bodies move in
circles",anticipating Copernicus in moving "the earth from the center of the cosmos
[and] making it a planet". Although its concepts of a Central Fire distinct from the
Sun, and a nonexistent "Counter-Earth" were erroneous, the system contained the
insight that "the apparent motion of the heavenly bodies" was (in large part) due to
"the real motion of the observer". How much of the system was intended to explain
observed phenomena and how much was based on myth and religion is
disputed. While the departure from traditional reasoning is impressive, other than
the inclusion of the 5 visible planets, very little of the Pythagorean system is based
on genuine observation. In retrospect, Philolaus's views are "less like scientific
astronomy than like symbolical speculation.
 Conic Sections (Apollonius)
The conic sections, or two-dimensional figures formed by the intersection of a
plane with a cone at different angles. The theory of these figures was developed
extensively by the ancient Greek mathematicians, surviving especially in works
such as those of Apollonius of Perga. The conic sections pervade modern
mathematics.