Today, the Solar System consists of eight planets namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,

Uranus, and Neptune. All these planets revolve around a massive ball of helium and hydrogen known as
the Sun. There are other bodies within the Solar System such as moons that revolve around the planets,
asteroids, and planetoids.

Jumping ahead in time, the systems of three astronomers were prominent in Kepler’s day (around the
turn of the 17th century). They were: Claudius Ptolemy, who developed the mathematics for an earth-
centered planetary model in the second century AD, Nicolaus Copernicus, who is famous for introducing
(in modern times) the idea that the sun is the center of the planetary system, and Tycho Brahe, a well-
to-do Danish nobleman who understood the importance of advancing the observational techniques
behind astronomy, if the science was to truly progress.

These three astronomers each created systems to understand the motion of the planets, which, at first
glance, appear very different. Let’s have a look:

As a very brief overview, using only the sun, earth, and Mars, Ptolemy has the sun, moon, and planets
orbit the earth, while Copernicus has everything move around the sun, and Tycho Brahe has a combined
motion in which the planets move around the sun, which itself revolved around the earth. Let’s look at
each model, one at a time, in more detail, and then arrive at Kepler’s surprising conclusion about them.

Models of Astronomical Phenomena: Copernican, Ptolemaic and Tychonic

Today, the Solar System consists of eight planets namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, and Neptune. All these planets revolve around a massive ball of helium and hydrogen known as
the Sun. There are other bodies within the Solar System such as moons that revolve around the planets,
asteroids, and planetoids.

Jumping ahead in time, the systems of three astronomers were prominent in Kepler’s day (around the
turn of the 17th century). They were: Claudius Ptolemy, who developed the mathematics for an earth-
centered planetary model in the second century AD, Nicolaus Copernicus, who is famous for introducing
(in modern times) the idea that the sun is the center of the planetary system, and Tycho Brahe, a well-
to-do Danish nobleman who understood the importance of advancing the observational techniques
behind astronomy, if the science was to truly progress.

These three astronomers each created systems to understand the motion of the planets, which, at first
glance, appear very different. Let’s have a look:
As a very brief overview, using only the sun, earth, and Mars, Ptolemy has the sun, moon, and planets
orbit the earth, while Copernicus has everything move around the sun, and Tycho Brahe has a combined
motion in which the planets move around the sun, which itself revolved around the earth. Let’s look at
each model, one at a time, in more detail, and then arrive at Kepler’s surprising conclusion about them.

Ptolemaic Model

ptolemy_portrait

The Ptolemaic model known as the Geocentric model was developed by an Egyptian astronomer
Claudius Ptolemy. It came from the Greek words geo meaning Earth and centric meaning center. This
model explains that the Earth is the center of the universe and everything else revolves around it. Each
planet moves in a circular path called epicycle which moves around a larger circular path called
deferents. The moon revolves around the Earth followed by the other planets.

As the stars move overhead during the night, the image of a sphere is inescapable. Based on the idea
that the stars were on a large sphere, Ptolemy stuck the earth right in the middle of it, held in place by
all that air out there. We don’t feel the earth move and there’s nothing stiller to find in our experience
than the ground itself. So, Ptolemy thought that all of the stars move around the earth every single day,
and the proper motion of the sun, moon, and planets was added to that common, first motion of the
entire heavens.

You may be wondering: “Couldn’t the earth be at the center of the universe and still spin? Wouldn’t that
make things easier?” Well, no, that wasn’t possible according to Ptolemy, because then if you jumped
up in the air, or fired an arrow, the earth would spin out from underneath it, and you and your arrow
would land in another continent. Here’s what Ptolemy wrote about the earth moving in space:

“And if it [the earth] had someone common movement, the same as that of the other weights, it would
clearly leave them all behind because of its much greater magnitude. And the animals and other weights
would be left hanging in the air, and the earth would very quickly fall out of the heavens. Merely to
conceive such things makes them appear ridiculous.”
And here’s what he had to say about spinning:

“For us to grant these things, they would have to admit that the earth’s turning is the swiftest of
absolutely all the movements about it because of its making so great a revolution in a short time, so that
all those things that were not at rest on the earth would seem to have a movement contrary to it, and
never would a cloud be seen to move toward the east nor anything else that flew or was thrown into the
air. For the earth would always outstrip them in its eastward motion, so that all bodies would seem to
be left behind and to move towards the west.”

Now, back to the planets. Remember the loop that we saw the planet make in its motion over time?
How could Ptolemy account for that? Well, instead of the planets simply moving around the earth,
Ptolemy added the second circle as well. The first circle is called the deferent, and on it spins an
epicycle, on which the planet itself is seen. With this epicycle, Ptolemy accounted for the loops made by
the planets.

As we grow the epicycle to the appropriate size, it makes the apparent loops the planet traces out, and
even makes the planet come closer to the earth during the loopings, and, indeed, Mars appears at its
brightest during its backward motion.

Now, while the model you see here has specific sizes for the orbits and epicycles, in order for each
planet to have its own sphere, Ptolemy’s mathematical astronomy work didn’t actually include those
distances. Since he only cared about where you’d see a planet, and not where it actually was, he only
gave ratios between the orbits and epicycles for each planet. So, if I adjust the orbit of Mars by
increasing the size of the deferent and epicycle together, it will not change where Mars appears to be,
and will still be an equally valid representation of Ptolemy’s model. After all, his only job was to “save
appearances.” Now, watch what happens when I adjust all the orbits in a certain way. First, the outer
planets: Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. I’ll change the orbits so that the epicycles are all the same size.

(They watch what happens.)

Notice anything in particular? Yes, the epicycles all point the same way. Now, let’s add in the sun. When
you look at it like this, with all the epicycles aligned with the sun, it seems pretty zany to give the sun no
role whatsoever in the motion of the planets, especially since Ptolemy’s predecessors in Greece had
already put forward the sun being at the center, but we’ll stick with what Ptolemy said for now. For him,
each planet had its own particular movers. There was nothing physically common to the proper motion
of the different planets (excluding the daily motion of the entire heavens around the earth).

And now, the inner planets: Mercury and Venus. For these two, we’ll adjust the deferents until they are
the same size as the sun. Sure looks like they’re going around the sun, doesn’t it? This is a valid
representation of Ptolemy’s ratios. Did he really not realize this?

Oh, and don’t forget about the daily motion:

Doesn’t this seem silly? Here’s what Benjamin Franklin had to say about this scheme:

“Ptolemy is compared to a whimsical Cook, who, instead of Turning his meat in roasting, should fix That,
and contrive to have his whole Fire, Kitchen and all, whirling continually round it.”

Copernican Model

nicolaus-copernicus

This is also known as the Heliocentric model developed by a Polish mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus.
It came from the Greek words Helios meaning sun and centric meaning center. This model explains that
the center of the universe is the Sun and that the majority of the planets revolve around it. Also, the
epicycle moves in an elliptical motion not circular. The moon revolves around both the Earth and the
Sun while Earth revolves around the Sun.

Nicolaus Copernicus is credited with setting the earth in motion, which he did, and with putting the sun
at the center of the planetary system, which he came close to doing. He wrote of the sun: “In the center
of all rests the sun. For who would place this lamp in a very beautiful temple in another or better place
than this, from which it can illuminate everything at the same time?… And so the sun, as if resting on a
kingly throne, governs the family of stars which wheel around.” Since this system is pretty familiar, I
don’t think there’s much to say about it, except to point out how it accounts for the observed loopings
of the planets.
A Mars year is longer than an earth year, which means that earth passes Mars at regular intervals. Every
time this happens, let’s see what the apparent, perceived motion of Mars is, for us on earth who are
watching it.

Mars appears to move backward. So much for the looping. On the other irregularity of motion, the fact
that Mars itself seems to speed up and slow down, independent of the moving earth watching it,
Copernicus, rejecting the uneven motion created by Ptolemy’s equant, instead used two epicycles per
planet, but the effect is observationally identical to Ptolemy’s equant model. With the epicycle removed,
to compare with the Copernican, with two epicycles. As I fade back and forth, the position of Mars does
change a bit, but the direction does not. The difference is less than a minute, and therefore
observationally indistinguishable. In fact, Copernicans would regularly use the equant instead of the
double epicycle when doing their calculations, because the math is easier.

Copernicus used these double epicycles because he insisted that only regular, uniform circular motion
could be found in the heavens, but the equant made an unequal motion for the planet.

“We must, however, confess that these movements are circular or are composed of many circular
movements, in that they maintain these irregularities in accordance with a constant law and with fixed
periodic returns: and that could not take place if they were not circular. For it is only the circle which can
bring back what is past and over with… Many movements are recognized in that movement since it is
impossible that a simple heavenly body should be moved irregularly by a single sphere. For that would
have to take place either on account of the inconstancy of the motor virtue — whether by reason of an
extrinsic cause or its intrinsic nature — or on account of the inequality between it and the moved body.
But since the mind shudders at either of these suppositions, and since it is quite unfitting to suppose
that such a state of affairs exists among things which are established in the best system, it is agreed that
their regular movements appear to us as irregular, whether on account of their circles having different
poles or even because the earth is not at the center of the circles in which they revolve.”

So, you see that Copernicus is still a mathematician, not a physicist, and is trapped at looking at
everything from a geometrical viewpoint. He allows the earth to have motion, but “shudders” at
anything non-geometric (for example, physical) actually moving it.
Ironically, Copernicus’s circle-based motion actually causes the planet to move in an oval! Ptolemy had a
circular path for the deferent, with uneven motion, and Copernicus has a collection of even circular
motions that make a non-circular path! Does this suggest anything to you?

Tychonic Model

Tycho_Brahe

This model was developed by a Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. It was the combination of Ptolemaic
and Copernican models. This explains that the planets of the Solar System revolve around the Sun but
the Earth is the center of the universe.

The Sun, due to its massive size, attracts the remaining planets and drags them along its revolution
around the Earth – like metals attracted to a magnet! Simply put, the Sun revolves around the Earth and
the planets revolve around the Sun.

In 1600, Kepler had the opportunity to work with the Holy Roman Emperor’s royal astronomer, the Dane
Tycho Brahe. Earlier, from his observatory Uraniborg on the island of Hven, Brahe had set up a scientific
laboratory, with a number of employees to aid in the making of observations, tabulating data, and
calculating planetary positions. His dedication to making the best possible observations to drive
astronomy forward meant that his naked-eye data were very accurate, to within an arcminute or two.
An arcminute is a sixtieth of a degree, just as the more familiar time minutes are sixtieths of an hour.
(And, just for fun, the 60 seconds that make up a minute, got that name from originally being called
second minutes, since they divided the minutes.)

In creating his system of nature, Tycho combined aspects of both Ptolemy and Copernicus’s systems.
The earth lay at the center, stationary, heavy, and unmoving. Around it spun the sun, stars, moon, and
planets every day, just as for Ptolemy. But, Brahe had the other planets go around the sun, which itself
went around the earth. The combined motion of the sun and the planets around the sun took care of
the looping motion.

Now, the planets didn’t quite go around the sun. Like Copernicus, Brahe used an artificial (“mean”) sun
&emdash; the gray point here &emdash; a point near the true sun, which goes around the earth at a
constant speed. Like Copernicus, the actual sun played no role in Tycho’s model, and he too used a
double-epicycle, rather than an equant to account for the uneven motion of the planet, excluding
retrogrades.

Observe the night sky for a week. What do you notice at the stars? Why do they change position every
night? Also, why do you think the night sky changes with the seasons?