The Revolutionary Astronomers | S. K. Heninger, Jr. (essay date 1977)
S. K. Heninger, Jr. (essay date 1977)
SOURCE: "Copernicus and His Consequences," in The Cosmographical Glass: Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe, The Huntington Library, 1977, pp. 45-80.
[In the following excerpt, Heninger gives a detailed explanation of each of the many cosmological models that the Copernican theory had spawned in the seventeenth century, thereby telling the story of the difficult transition to the new astronomy.]
The geocentric system gives the appearance of neatness and accounts readily for the casually observed phenomena in the world around us. Nonetheless, it proved unwieldy to the professional astronomer. His job was to chart the actual movement of the planets, rather than construct a perfect model of the universe; and often, in order to provide information required by astrologers and physicians, he was obliged to predict the planets' positions at a given moment. Moreover, the practicing astronomer was aware of...
[The entire page is 11917 words long]
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