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THE
C
CASE
AGAINST
O P E R N I C U S
IN BRIEF
Copernicus’s revolutionary theory that Earth travels Most scientists refused to accept this theory for many Their objections were not only theological. Obser-
around the sun upended more than a millennium’s decades—even after Galileo made his epochal obser- vational evidence supported a competing cosmolo-
worth of scientific and religious wisdom. vations with his telescope. gy—the “geoheliocentrism” of Tycho Brahe.
matter” or “dark energy” that is unlike any- es. The size of the universe then became a hugely hard to believe—Brahe said such
thing we know. whole new—and almost impossible to be titanic stars were absurd. As historian
Another thing that bothered Brahe were lieve—kind of “immeasurably large.” Albert Van Helden puts it, Brahe’s “logic
the stars in the Copernican system. Ptolemy Moreover, as Brahe well knew, the was impeccable; his measurements above
said the sphere of the stars is “immeasurably Copernican proposal had big implications reproach. A Copernican simply had to ac
large” because we can detect no diurnal par- not only for the size of the universe but also cept the results of this argument.”
allax in them—no noticeable alterations in for the size of individual stars. When we Rather than give up their theory in the
their positions or appearances caused by the look up at the night sky, individual stars face of seemingly incontrovertible physical
changing angles and distances between an appear to have fixed widths, which both evidence, Copernicans were forced to appeal
Earth-bound observer and those stars as Ptolemy and Brahe measured. We now to divine omnipotence. “These things that
they pass from the horizon, to overhead, to know that the distant stars are effectively vulgar sorts see as absurd at first glance are
the horizon. The corollary of this observa- point sources of light, and these apparent not easily charged with absurdity, for in fact
tion is that the diameter of Earth is as noth- widths are an artifact of the passage of light divine Sapience and Majesty are far greater
ing compared with stellar distances; Earth waves through a circular aperture such as than they understand,” wrote Copernican
is “as a point,” Ptolemy wrote. a telescope or an iris. Christoph Rothmann in a letter to Brahe.
Copernicus knew, however, that we could Yet at the time, astronomers knew noth- “Grant the vastness of the Universe and the
not even detect a nnual p
arallax—changes ing of the wave nature of light. Brahe used sizes of the stars to be as great as you like—
in the relative positions of stars caused by simple geometry to calculate that if the these will still bear no proportion to the infi-
the movement of Earth in its orbit. If Earth stars were to lie at Copernican distances, nite Creator. It reckons that the greater the
really was revolving around the sun, the then they would have to have a width com- king, so much greater and larger the palace
absence of annual parallax would imply that parable to that of the orbis magnus. Even befitting his majesty. So how great a palace
the diameter of its orbit (Copernicus called the smallest star would utterly dwarf the do you reckon is fitting to GOD?”
it the o rbis magnus) was itself as nothing, sun, just as a grapefruit dwarfs the period Unswayed by arguments such as this,
“as a point,” compared with stellar distanc- at the end of this sentence. That, too, was Brahe proposed his own system: the sun,
Scientific American Online How did epicycles work? Watch a video at ScientificAmerican.com/jan2014/copernicus
hundreds of years later. Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimensions from Aristarchus to Halley. Albert Van Helden. University of
One argument was based on the inabili- Chicago Press, 1985.
ty to detect certain effects that Riccioli said The Telescope against Copernicus: Star Observations by Riccioli Supporting a Geocentric Universe.
Christopher M. Graney in Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 41, No. 4, pages 453–467; November 2010.
a rotating planet should p roduce in projec-
Ancestors of Apollo. D ennis Danielson in American Scientist, V ol. 99, No. 1, pages 136–143; March–April 2011.
tiles and falling bodies. Brahe had felt that a Stars as the Armies of God: Lansbergen’s Incorporation of Tycho Brahe’s Star-Size Argument into the Copernican
rotating Earth should deflect a projectile Theory. Christopher M. Graney in Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 44, No. 2, pages 165–172; May 2013.
away from a straight path. Yet these deflec-
From our Archives
tions would not be observed until the 19th
century, when French scientist Gaspard- Copernicus and Tycho. Owen Gingerich; December 1973.
Gustave de Coriolis worked out a full math- The Galileo Affair. Owen Gingerich; August 1982.
Galileo and the Specter of Bruno. L awrence S. Lerner and Edward A. Gosselin; November 1986.
ematical description of such effects.
The Right Way to Get It Wrong. D avid Kaiser and Angela N. H. Creager; June 2012.
The other argument was the one Brahe
had made about star size, which Riccioli