History
Johannes Kepler published his first two laws in 1609, having found them by analyzing the astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe. Kepler discovered his third law many years later, and it was published in 1619. At the time, Kepler's laws were radical claims; the prevailing belief (particularly in epicycle-based theories) was that orbits should be based on perfect circles. Most of the planetary orbits can be rather closely approximated as circles, so it is not immediately evident that the orbits are ellipses. Detailed calculations for the orbit of the planet Mars first indicated to Kepler its elliptical shape, and he inferred that other heavenly bodies, including those farther away from the Sun, have elliptical orbits too. Kepler's laws and his analysis of the observations on which they were based, the assertion that the Earth orbited the Sun, proof that the planets' speeds varied, and use of elliptical orbits rather than circular orbits with epicycles—challenged the long-accepted geocentric models of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and generally supported the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus (although Kepler's ellipses likewise did away with Copernicus's circular orbits and epicycles).
Some eight decades later, Isaac Newton proved that relationships like Kepler's would apply exactly under certain ideal conditions that are to a good approximation fulfilled in the solar system, as consequences of Newton's own laws of motion and law of universal gravitation. Because of the nonzero planetary masses and resulting perturbations, Kepler's laws apply only approximately and not exactly to the motions in the solar system. Voltaire's Eléments de la philosophie de Newton (Elements of Newton's Philosophy) was in 1738 the first publication to call Kepler's Laws "laws". Together with Newton's mathematical theories, they are part of the foundation of modern astronomy and physics.
Read more about this topic: Kepler's Laws Of Planetary Motion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)