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
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
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

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?