"If Nicolaus Copernicus, the distinguished and incomparable master, in this work had not been deprived of exquisite and faultless instruments, he would have left us this science far more well-established. For he, if anybody, was outstanding and had the most perfect understanding of the geometrical and arithmetical requisites for building up this discipline. Nor was he in any respect inferior to Ptolemy; on the contrary, he surpassed him greatly in certain fields, particularly as far as the device of fi t ness and compendious harmony in hypotheses is concerned. And his apparently absurd opinion that the Earth revolves does not obstruct this estimate, because a circular motion designed to go on uniformly about another point than the very center of the circle, as actually found in the Ptolemaic hypotheses of all the planets except that of the Sun, offends against the very basic principles of our discipline in a far more absurd and intolerable way than does the attributing to the Earth one motion or another which, being a natural motion, turns out to be imperceptible. There does not at all arise from this assumption so many unsuitable consequences as most people think." (Tycho Brahe, [letter to Christopher Rothman] 1587)
"In astronomy the scenery is continually shifting, and the modes of language vary in proportion as this inexhaustible science makes progress in improvement, and supplies us with new theories. Ptolemy spake the language ot the people: to Copernicus we are indebted for the language of astronomy; which Tycho Brahe in some measure confounded: Kepler and Newton rectified his faults, and gave to astronomical language a superior degree of elegance and perfection. The discoveries of the present and future times will introduce in this respect farther changes. All these different modes of language will, nevertheless, continue to be always intelligible; and may always be preserved in a certain degree, and within certain limitations." (Johann H Lambert, "The System of the World", 1800)
"The system of Copernicus is, in fact, only a theory; but we have seen that astronomy can come at the truth only by carefully bringing under a review every possible hypothesis.This science, however, has made astonishing progress; by converting, at different periods apparent arrangements into such as are more conformable to what actually exista, we have left behind various theories founded in appearances, and penetrated, if not fully and demonstrably, at least in the way ot fair conjecture, even to the real and genuine order of things." (Johann H Lambert, "The System of the World", 1800)
"It is a vulgar belief that our astronomical knowledge dates only from the recent century when it was rescued from the monks who imprisoned Galileo; but Hipparchus [...] who among other achievements discovered the precession of the eqinoxes, ranks with the Newtons and the Keplers; and Copernicus, the modern father of our celestial science, avows himself, in his famous work, as only the champion of Pythagoras, whose system he enforces and illustrates. Even the most modish schemes of the day on the origin of things, which captivate as much by their novelty as their truth, may find their precursors in ancient sages, and after a careful analysis of the blended elements of imagination and induction which charaterise the new theories, they will be found mainly to rest on the atom of Epicurus and the monad of Thales. Scientific, like spiritual truth, has ever from the beginning been descending from heaven to man." (Benjamin Disraeli, "Lothair", 1879)
"Copernicus and Lobatchewsky were both of Slavic origin. Each of them has brought about a revolution in scientific ideas so great that it can only be compared with that wrought by the other. And the reason of the transcendent importance of these two changes is that they are changes in the conception of the Cosmos. [...] Now the enormous effect of the Copernican system, and of the astronomical discoveries that have followed it, is […] the change effected by Copernicus in the idea of the universe. But there was left another to be made. For the laws of space and motion. […] So, you see, there is a real parallel between the work of Copernicus and […] the work of Lobatchewsky." (William K Clifford, "The Postulates of Time And Space", [in "Lectures and Essays" Vol. 1] 1901)
No comments:
Post a Comment