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.
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