Talk:Heliocentrism

Medieval European heliocentrism

I know of no examples of transmission via the silk road, or of any knowledge of ancient Greek or Latin heliocentrism except for Martianus's semi-heliocentric position. I plan to modify accordingly. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Heraclides doesn't belong

Bruce Eastwood concludes a detailed study (Journal for the History of Astronomy, 23(1992): 233-260) of the ancient texts and their medieval discussion that "Nowhere in the ancient literature mentioning Heraclides of Pontus is there a clear reference for his support for any kind of heliocentrical planetary position." --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Otto Neugebauer has apparently said much the same thing, according to a footnote in Linton's From Eudoxus to Einstein (p.24). The article Linton cites is "On the allegedly heliocentric theory of Venus by Heraclides Ponticus", American Journal of Philology, 93(4) (1972), 600-1, reprinted in O. Neugebauer (1983), Astronomy and History, Selected Essays, Springer-Verlag.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

David: Thanks for pointing out that reference. Neugebauer's short note clarifies how the technical Greek astronomical terminology relates to Calcidius's Latin discussion of Heraclides and, based on that clarification, proposes the following translation of the relevant passage:

Heraclides Ponticus, when describing the circle (circulum) of Venus as well as that of the sun, and giving the two circles the same centre (unum punctum) and the same mean motion (unam medietatem), showed that Venus is sometimes ahead (superior), sometimes behind (inferior) the sun.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Citation requests in section Religious attitudes to Copernican heliocentrism

I have removed all citation requests from the section "Religious attitudes to Copernican heliocentrism". In some cases I have provided what appears to me to be an adequate citation. In other cases, where the statement appears to be a matter of opinion and no citation has been provided, I have simply removed the text. There are a few cases where I have reworded the text to keep the essential feature (and provided a citation) while removing the specific text to which there may have been an objection. I have accepted on trust citations in other wikipedia articles where I do not have access to the works cited. I think the whole section would benefit from a re-write, but before attempting this, perhaps someone could review my changes to make sure I have not misunderstood what was required. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 10:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead with the re-write. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 06:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Rjm at sleepers has transferred passages from other Wikipedia articles, to no purpose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.249.165 (talk) 10:25, October 3, 2009 (UTC)

I did indeed include excerpts from other articles where they seemed to be relevant and had appropriate references. It's possible I've overdone it. If there's a specific objection to something I've included, let's discuss it. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 10:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

A serious mistake was corrected by Wilson on the 4/10/2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.249.165 (talk) 11:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

In general, I think Rjm at sleepers's rewrite is a considerable improvement on the previous version of this section. In my opinion, though, the amount of space devoted to it is still way out of proportion to its importance relative to the rest of the article, and I think a drastic pruning would greatly improve it.

In the meantime, the only other things I'm aware of needing immediate attention are a couple of inaccurate details in the material on the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. If you're aware of anything else, please provide more specific details, or feel free to make the corrections yourself.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:46, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Modern use

I recently made some edits to the section on Modern use, which has been somewhat unintelligible since this edit in early 2007. I hope I hit the mark here. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:40, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Needs archive

I suggest that this talk page is in need of an archive. It has some really stale material here. Since it's not that active I suggest automatic archiving of threads over 500 days old. The change is in the history as I set it up but then reverted since I should get consensus first --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:56, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It seems unlikely to me that there will be any objections, so if there aren't any within a week or so I suggest that you go ahead and implement the change then.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 02:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

This makes sense to me as well. --Noren (talk) 02:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Set up auto-archiving. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Repetition

There is something seriously wrong with this article. There are two Middle East sections, which are redundant with each other and repeat the same information in some instances. In addition, the chronological order appears all screwed up. I will do my best to fix this. --Athenean (talk) 04:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I've done my best to try and re-organize the article for better flow, and to remove information that was repeated. I am also debating whether to remove the section on Aristotle, as it doesn't really have anything to do with heliocentrism. Any input is greatly appreciated. I also find it rather odd that so little space is devoted to discussing the Copernican model, which as far I'm concerned should one of the main, if not the main, focus of this article. Especially so when paragraph upon paragraph is devoted to the Middle East, where geocentrism was the norm and heliocentrism was only discussed peripherally. --Athenean (talk) 05:45, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Two

The two articles more or less contradict each other on the subject of Aryabhata and ellipses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.36.65 (talk) 15:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Heliocentricism?

There's been a bit of edit conflict over the alternative word heliocentricism. Here are a few relevant points:

Google search:

• 54,900 for heliocentrism.
• 14,700 for heliocentricism.

Oxford English Dictionary (online version):

• Heliocentrism does not appear as an entry, but appears in the definition of "Kuhnian" and in a 1993 quotation under "reconciliation."
• Heliocentricism appears as a derived entry under "heliocentric", although only with nineteenth-century citations, and in an 1885 quotation under "ultramontanist".

Heliocentricism seems to be an acceptable variant, although current usage (Google) shows heliocentrism as the dominant form. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC); edited 03:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think there is sufficient support in authoritative dictionaries for "heliocentricism" to be mentioned in the article as an acceptable variant—with a citation to the OED or Shorter OED. I have checked a few other dictionaries, most of which don't list either of the words "heliocentricism" or "heliocentrism". The same goes for the corresponding words "geocentrism" and "geocentricism". Here are the results of my searches:

• OED, Second Edition, 1989: "Heliocentricism" and "geocentricism" are listed but neither "heliocentrism" nor "geocentrism" are (confirming Srteve McCluskey's findings).
• Shorter OED, 11th edition, 2007: "Heliocentricism" and "geocentrism" are listed but neither "heliocentrism" nor "geocentricism" are (and, yes, I have typed that correctly).
• Concise OED, 2006: "Geocentrism" is listed but none of "geocentricism", "heliocentrism" or "heliocentricism" are.
• Concise Oxford American Dictionary, 2006: As for concise OED.

None of the other dictionaries I consulted (Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English, Collins Australian English Dictionary, Chambers Dictionary) listed any of the four words.

I don't believe the sources currently cited for the use of "heliocentricism" are adequate, but they can (and should) simply be replaced with a reference to the OED or Shorter OED.

—David Wilson (talk · cont) 05:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, I only have access to the (unfree access) online OED. Could you provide the citations. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Maragha School and Heliocentrism?

The lengthy discussion of the Maragha school's geocentric models doesn't seem appropriate to an article on heliocentrism. Although there are well-documented technical similarities between their equantless geometric models and the equantless model of Copernicus, none of the texts showing mathematical influence indicate any connection with Copernicus's advocacy of heliocentricism. Emphasizing that similarity in an article on heliocentism--even with all the disclaimers in the article--leaves the unsupportable suggestion that Copernicus's heliocentrism is in someway related to the work of the Maragha school. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 00:57, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

The Tusi couple, as a geometric form, probably used by Copernicus, is relevant.IAC-62 (talk) 12:31, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The passage that I flagged as needing a citation: Ibn al-Shatir "having demonstrated trigonometrically that the Earth was not the exact center of the universe." is explicitly contradicted by Nidhal Guessoum in the Observatory article cited (p. 238), that "the modifications he brought to Ptolemy's model aimed at making it more strictly geocentric." Guessoum's article (he teaches in the UAE) seems a rather sane corrective to some of the more extreme claims of Islamic contributions to heliocentrism. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:21, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I was bold and removed completely the latest additions of Jagged who unfortunately has build up a habit of throwing incoherent and offtopical things into articles. I don't think it should the job of two, three other editors to constantly agonize over such enigmatic edits, especially when they are copy and pasted all over Wiki with little regard to the specific structure of the respective articles. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:31, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with both you guys here. The whole paragraph on the Maragha observatory has little relevance to this article. The first sentence "At the Maragha observatory, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (b. 1201) resolved significant problems in the Ptolemaic system by developing the Tusi-couple as an alternative to the physically problematic equant introduced by Ptolemy.", in particular, seems more like it belongs to Geocentric model than here. Come to think of it, with the exception of the paragraph on Biruni, there is little else that is relevant. Regarding GPM's other point, on low importance articles I am happy to let things slide, but on high importance articles such as this one, a higher standard is needed. Athenean (talk) 06:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I consider the last edit by Gun Powder Ma unacceptably sweeping. I have twice found Jagged citing sources incorrectly, once the Gill article and most particularly the Covington Aramco journal article, which I read through three times to make sure. The last edit, for example, sweepingly removes the Chaldean nationality of Seleucus, insisted on by Jagged, which is accurate. IAC-62 (talk) 15:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Please feel free to add again the material which you think accurately reflects scholarly sources. On Seleucos, though, I'd like to make a closer check. If he published his works in Greek, then there is every reason to consider him a Hellenistic astronomer irrespective of his ethnic background (to use a modern term for lack of a better one). PS: That he published in cuniform is very suspect, since, from the top of my head, cuneiform actually had died out around the same time or even earlier. But I'll check it. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

He was in a way both, Babylonian and Greek, although the little we know of his works may place him more in the Greek astronomical traditions. After all, despite Strabo's designation as "Chaldean", he was said to follow Aristarchus, not any Babylonian forerunner. In a way the whole point is moot, see now Seleucus of Seleucia for an attempt to harmonize the two strands of his personality. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Gunpowder has a bad habit of reverting every single edit made by a user he dislikes instead of actually reverting the actual content he disagrees with. Which of my additions did he find irrelevant to the article? The part about Seleucus' work being available in Arabic? Or the part about several Muslim scholars disputing the Earth's immobility and centrality in the universe? The only things he has said he disagrees with is the Maragha-Copernican connection, which is not something I recently added, but has been in this article for a long time now. If anything, my recent edits had actually shortened the Maragha-Copernicus connection, but for some reason Gunpowder thinks I'm trying to extend it and thus sees it fit to revert all of my edits altogether, regardless of their relevance. I can only hope that Gunpowder ceases from making such sweeping edits in future. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 20:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Could it have something to do with the inventiveness of many of your 'contributions' and the careless way you drop little-understood references like bombs over articles with little regard to both contents and structure? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Article Introduction

Shouldn't it be made clearer in the introduction that heliocentrism is superseded, much as geocentrism is? I mean, its obvious, that the sun is not "stationary and at the center of the universe." but I don't think this means that this should be mentioned only at the very end of the article. Janfrie1988 (talk) 19:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Brethren of Purity again

The claim that the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity contains a description of a heliocentric cosmological system is flatly contradicted by the foremost academic authority on the subject (see Talk:Heliocentrism/Archive 1#Brotherhood of purity). The article's current claim that "some verses have been interpreted as implying a heliocentric model" is cited solely to the opinion of a single writer of Theosophical tracts who appears to have no qualifications or reputation as a historian. I am therefore removing this material as a violation of Wikipedia's policies on neutral point-of-view and undue weight.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 18:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's good to see that you also notified the original creator of that passage who is not noted for particularly caring for what happens on talk pages. ;-)Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

al-Balkhi

I have removed the following text from the article because the reference cited does not support it.

"Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787-886) developed a planetary model which can be interpreted as a heliocentric model. This is due to his orbital revolutions of the planets being given as heliocentric revolutions rather than geocentric revolutions. His work on planetary theory has not survived, but his astronomical data were later recorded by al-Hashimi and Biruni.[balkhiref 1]"

Reference

1. ^ Bartel Leendert van der Waerden (1987). "The Heliocentric System in Greek, Persian and Hindu Astronomy", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 500 (1), 525–545 [534–537].

Nowhere in the cited reference does van der Waerden say or imply that al-Balkhi "developed a planetary model which can be interpreted as heliocentric." What he does is conjecture that the Greek astronomer Seleucus turned Aristarchus's rudimentary heliocentric theory into a fully-fledged predictive system by determining the necessary constants and developing methods of calculating planetary positions. He further argues that Aryabhata's presentation of one of his own theories (which van der Waerden explicitly says was not heliocentric) inherited traces of the originally heliocentric theory through his reliance on astronomical tables or an astronomical treatise which has now been lost, and that similar traces can be found in the system described by al-Biruni and al-Sijzi and attributed by them to al-Balkhi.--Knight1993 (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

helocentric model: Why we believe this!

We believe this because if we were where the sun is and the sun where we are then becausethe sun has more mass the sun would pull us into itself!

Sorry thats the only reason I know. Hope it helps... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.174.50 (talk) 08:45, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, nowadays we accept neither heliocentrism, nor geocentrism, for the very question of the center in the infinite universe is meaningless. The only sense in which heliocentrism can be said to be accepted nowadays is that the Sun is the centre of the solar system. Period. But this is not the heliocentrism that Copernicus or Kepler had in mind. In fact, when the Cartesian natural philosophy overthrew that of Aristotle, geocentrism was replaced not by heliocentrism, strictly speaking, but by the conception of heliocentric solar system in an infinite universe. Perhaps this may be mentioned in the article. Jackbars (talk) 01:29, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

The following century

The phrase "the following century" gives the impression that Kepler's work was confined to the 17th. century. He was doing some admittedly not very scientific work in the 16th. century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.1.196 (talk) 08:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Much of Kepler's work that was published in the 17th. century was far from scientific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.157.45 (talk) 17:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Kepler was born in 1571 and was making an observation at the age of six. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.157.45 (talk) 17:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Kepler was publishing some work, which he considered to be scientific, in 1596. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.60.250 (talk) 15:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Elliptical orbits in Indian astronomy

The article incorrectly claims Nilakantha´s model had elliptical orbits. This is a misinterpretation (or something worse) of the source, which never claims such a thing. I have no access to it, but I read a review, which clearly states his model didn´t have elliptical orbits. Therefore, the information will be removed immediately.--Knight1993 (talk) 21:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Be BoldJ8079s (talk) 03:10, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Mathematical and philosophical considerations

After reading this article several times, I realise it is unfair towards the greek accomplishments, putting them in the "philosophical" category, while the indian and muslim theories, which were farther form the truth because they were not heliocentric, fall into the "mathemarical" category. The theories of Aristarchus and Seleucus and indeed as mathematical as the others, and heliocentric as well. They deserve more notoriety than geocentric theories.--Knight1993 (talk) 19:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Category:Obsolete scientific theories

How does this fit this category? 75.118.171.224 (talk) 15:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)