“Copernican heliocentrism”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Copernicus was aware that the ancient Greek Aristarchus had already proposed a heliocentric theory, and cited him as a proponent of it in a reference that was deleted before publication, but there is no evidence that Copernicus had knowledge of, or access to, the specific details of Aristarchus' theory.^[2] Although he had circulated an outline of his own heliocentric theory to colleagues sometime before 1514, he did not decide to publish it until he was urged to do so late in his life by his pupil Rheticus. Copernicus's challenge was to present a practical alternative to the Ptolemaic model by more elegantly and accurately determining the length of a solar year while preserving the metaphysical implications of a mathematically ordered cosmos. Thus, his heliocentric model retained several of the Ptolemaic elements causing the inaccuracies, such as the planets' circular orbits, epicycles, and uniform speeds,^[1] while at the same time re-introducing such innovations as:

Heliocentrism before Copernicus

Antiquity

Philolaus (4th century BCE) was one of the first to hypothesize movement of the Earth, probably inspired by Pythagoras' theories about a spherical, moving globe. Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BCE had developed some theories of Heraclides Ponticus (speaking of a revolution by Earth on its axis) to propose what was, so far as is known, the first serious model of a heliocentric solar system. Though his original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book The Sand Reckoner (Archimedis Syracusani Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli) describes a work by Aristarchus in which he advanced the heliocentric model. Archimedes wrote:

It is a common idea that the heliocentric view was rejected by the contemporaries of Aristarchus. This is due to Gilles Ménage's translation of a passage from Plutarch's On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon. Plutarch reported that Cleanthes (a contemporary of Aristarchus and head of the Stoics) as a worshipper of the Sun and opponent to the heliocentric model, was jokingly told by Aristarchus that he should be charged with impiety. Gilles Ménage, shortly after the trials of Galileo and Giordano Bruno, amended an accusative (identifying the object of the verb) with a nominative (the subject of the sentence), and vice versa, so that the impiety accusation fell over the heliocentric sustainer. The resulting misconception of an isolated and persecuted Aristarchus is still transmitted today.^[4]^[5]

Middle Ages

Several Islamic astronomers questioned the Earth's apparent immobility,^[6]^[7] and centrality within the universe.^[8] Some accepted that the Earth rotates around its axis, such as Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi (d. circa 1020).^[9]^[11] who invented an astrolabe based on a belief held by some of his contemporaries "that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky."^[11]^[10] That others besides al-Sijzi held this view is further confirmed by a reference from an Arabic work in the 13th century which states:

Copernicus cited Aristarchus and Philolaus in an early manuscript of his book which survives, stating: "Philolaus believed in the mobility of the earth, and some even say that Aristarchus of Samos was of that opinion."^[14] For reasons unknown (although possibly out of reluctance to quote pre-Christian sources), he did not include this passage in the publication of his book. Inspiration came to Copernicus not from observation of the planets, but from reading two authors. In Cicero he found an account of the theory of Hicetas. Plutarch provided an account of the Pythagoreans Heraclides Ponticus, Philolaus, and Ecphantes. These authors had proposed a moving Earth, which did not, however, revolve around a central Sun. When Copernicus' book was published, it contained an unauthorized preface by the Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander. This cleric stated that Copernicus wrote his heliocentric account of the Earth's movement as a mere mathematical hypothesis, not as an account that contained truth or even probability. Since Copernicus' hypothesis was believed to contradict the Old Testament account of the Sun's movement around the Earth (Joshua 10:12-13), this was apparently written to soften any religious backlash against the book. However, there is no evidence that Copernicus himself considered the heliocentric model as merely mathematically convenient, separate from reality.

Mathematical techniques developed in the 13th to 14th centuries by the Arab and Persian astronomers Mo'ayyeduddin al-Urdi, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and Ibn al-Shatir for geocentric models of planetary motions closely resemble some of those used later by Copernicus in his heliocentric models.^[15] Copernicus used what is now known as the Urdi lemma and the Tusi couple in the same planetary models as found in Arabic sources.^[16] Furthermore, the exact replacement of the equant by two epicycles used by Copernicus in the Commentariolus was found in an earlier work by Ibn al-Shatir (d. c. 1375) of Damascus.^[17] Ibn al-Shatir's lunar and Mercury models are also identical to those of Copernicus.^[18] This has led some scholars to argue that Copernicus must have had access to some yet to be identified work on the ideas of those earlier astronomers.^[19]

However, no likely candidate for this conjectured work has yet come to light, and other scholars have argued that Copernicus could well have developed these ideas independently of the late Islamic tradition.^[20] Nevertheless, Copernicus cited some of the Islamic astronomers whose theories and observations he used in De Revolutionibus, namely al-Battani, Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Zarqali, Averroes, and al-Bitruji.^[21]

European scholars were well aware of the problems with Ptolemaic astronomy since the 13th century. The debate was precipitated by the reception by Averroes' criticism of Ptolemy, and it was again revived by the recovery of Ptolemy's text and its translation into Latin in the mid-15th century.^[22] Otto E. Neugebauer in 1957 argued that the debate in 15th-century Latin scholarship must also have been informed by the criticism of Ptolemy produced after Averroes, by the Ilkhanid-era (13th to 14th centuries) Persian school of astronomy associated with the

The state of the question as received by Copernicus is summarized in the Theoricae novae planetarum by Georg von Peuerbach, compiled from lecture notes by Peuerbach's student Regiomontanus in 1454 but printed only in 1472.

Peuerbach attempts to give a new, mathematically more elegant presentation of Ptolemy's system, but he does not arrive at heliocentrism.

Regiomontanus himself was the teacher of Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara, who was in turn the teacher of Copernicus.

There is a possibility that Regiomontanus already arrived at a theory of heliocentrism before his death in 1476, as he paid particular attention to the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus in a late work, and mentions the "motion of the Earth" in a letter.^[24]

The Ptolemaic system

The prevailing astronomical model of the cosmos in Europe in the 1,400 years leading up to the 16th century was that created by the Roman citizen Claudius Ptolemy in his Almagest, dating from about 150 A.D. Throughout the Middle Ages it was spoken of as the authoritative text on astronomy, although its author remained a little understood figure frequently mistaken as one of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt.^[25] The Ptolemaic system drew on many previous theories that viewed Earth as a stationary center of the universe. Stars were embedded in a large outer sphere which rotated relatively rapidly, while the planets dwelt in smaller spheres between—a separate one for each planet. To account for apparent anomalies in this view, such as the apparent retrograde motion of the planets, a system of deferents and epicycles was used. The planet was said to revolve in a small circle (the epicycle) about a center, which itself revolved in a larger circle (the deferent) about a center on or near the Earth.^[26]

A complementary theory to Ptolemy's employed homocentric spheres: the spheres within which the planets rotated could themselves rotate somewhat. This theory predated Ptolemy (it was first devised by Eudoxus of Cnidus; by the time of Copernicus it was associated with Averroes). Also popular with astronomers were variations such as eccentrics—by which the rotational axis was offset and not completely at the center.

Ptolemy's unique contribution to this theory was the equant—a point about which the center of a planet's epicycle moved with uniform angular velocity, but which was offset from the center of its deferent. This violated one of the fundamental principles of Aristotelian cosmology—namely, that the motions of the planets should be explained in terms of uniform circular motion, and was considered a serious defect by many medieval astronomers.^[27] In Copernicus's day, the most up-to-date version of the Ptolemaic system was that of Peurbach (1423–1461) and Regiomontanus (1436–1476).

Copernican theory

Copernicus' major work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (first edition 1543 in Nuremberg, second edition 1566 in Basel^[28]), was published during the year of his death, though he had arrived at his theory several decades earlier. The book marks the beginning of the shift away from a geocentric (and anthropocentric) universe with the Earth at its center. Copernicus held that the Earth is another planet revolving around the fixed Sun once a year, and turning on its axis once a day. But while Copernicus put the Sun at the center of the celestial spheres, he did not put it at the exact center of the universe, but near it. Copernicus' system used only uniform circular motions, correcting what was seen by many as the chief inelegance in Ptolemy's system.

The Copernican model replaced Ptolemy's equant circles with more epicycles.^[29] This is the main reason that Copernicus' system had even more epicycles than Ptolemy's. The Copernican system can be summarized in several propositions, as Copernicus himself did in his early Commentariolus that he handed only to friends probably in the 1510s. The "little commentary" was never printed. Its existence was only known indirectly until a copy was discovered in Stockholm around 1880, and another in Vienna a few years later.^[30]

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

It opened with an originally anonymous preface by Andreas Osiander, a theologian friend of Copernicus, who urged that the theory, which was considered a tool that allows simpler and more accurate calculations, did not necessarily have implications outside the limited realm of astronomy.^[31]

Copernicus' actual book began with a letter from his (by then deceased) friend Nikolaus von Schönberg, Cardinal Archbishop of Capua, urging Copernicus to publish his theory.^[32] Then, in a lengthy introduction, Copernicus dedicated the book to Pope Paul III, explaining his ostensible motive in writing the book as relating to the inability of earlier astronomers to agree on an adequate theory of the planets, and noting that if his system increased the accuracy of astronomical predictions it would allow the Church to develop a more accurate calendar. At that time, a reform of the Julian Calendar was considered necessary and was one of the major reasons for the Church's interest in astronomy.

Copernican Revolution

From publication until about 1700, few astronomers were convinced by the Copernican system, though the book was relatively widely circulated (around 500 copies of the first and second editions have survived,^[34] which is a large number by the scientific standards of the time). Few of Copernicus' contemporaries were ready to concede that the Earth actually moved, although Erasmus Reinhold used Copernicus' parameters to produce the Prutenic Tables. However, these tables translated Copernicus' mathematical methods back into a geocentric system, rejecting heliocentric cosmology on physical and theological grounds.^[35] The Prutenic tables came to be preferred by Prussian and German astronomers. The degree of improved accuracy of these tables remains an open question, but their usage of Copernican ideas led to more serious consideration of a heliocentric model. However, even forty-five years after the publication of De Revolutionibus, the astronomer Tycho Brahe went so far as to construct a cosmology precisely equivalent to that of Copernicus, but with the Earth held fixed in the center of the celestial sphere instead of the Sun.^[36] It was another generation before a community of practicing astronomers appeared who accepted heliocentric cosmology.

From a modern point of view, the Copernican model has a number of advantages. It accurately predicts the relative distances of the planets from the Sun, although this meant abandoning the cherished Aristotelian idea that there is no empty space between the planetary spheres. Copernicus also gave a clear account of the cause of the seasons: that the Earth's axis is not perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. In addition, Copernicus's theory provided a strikingly simple explanation for the apparent retrograde motions of the planets—namely as parallactic displacements resulting from the Earth's motion around the Sun—an important consideration in Johannes Kepler's conviction that the theory was substantially correct.^[37] In the heliocentric model the planets' apparent retrograde motions' occurring at opposition to the Sun are a natural consequence of their heliocentric orbits. In the geocentric model, however, these are explained by the ad hoc use of epicycles, whose revolutions are mysteriously tied to that of the Sun's.^[38]

However, for his contemporaries, the ideas presented by Copernicus were not markedly easier to use than the geocentric theory and did not produce more accurate predictions of planetary positions. Copernicus was aware of this and could not present any observational "proof", relying instead on arguments about what would be a more complete and elegant system. The Copernican model appeared to be contrary to common sense and to contradict the Bible. Tycho Brahe's arguments against Copernicus are illustrative of the physical, theological, and even astronomical grounds on which heliocentric cosmology was rejected. Tycho, arguably the most accomplished astronomer of his time, appreciated the elegance of the Copernican system, but objected to the idea of a moving Earth on the basis of physics, astronomy, and religion. The Aristotelian physics of the time (modern Newtonian physics was still a century away) offered no physical explanation for the motion of a massive body like Earth, but could easily explain the motion of heavenly bodies by postulating that they were made of a different sort of substance called aether that moved naturally. So Tycho said that the Copernican system “... expertly and completely circumvents all that is superfluous or discordant in the system of Ptolemy. On no point does it offend the principle of mathematics. Yet it ascribes to the Earth, that hulking, lazy body, unfit for motion, a motion as quick as that of the aethereal torches, and a triple motion at that.”^[39] Likewise, Tycho took issue with the vast distances to the stars that Copernicus had assumed in order to explain why the Earth's motion produced no visible changes in the appearance of the fixed stars (known as annual stellar parallax). Tycho had measured the apparent sizes of stars (now known to be illusory – see stellar magnitude), and used geometry to calculate that in order to both have those apparent sizes and be as far away as heliocentrism required, stars would have to be huge (the size of Earth's orbit or larger, and thus much larger than the Sun). Regarding this Tycho wrote, “Deduce these things geometrically if you like, and you will see how many absurdities (not to mention others) accompany this assumption [of the motion of the earth] by inference.”^[40] He said his Tychonic system, which incorporated Copernican features into a geocentric system, “offended neither the principles of physics nor Holy Scripture”.^[41] Thus many astronomers accepted some aspects of Copernicus's theory at the expense of others. His model did have a large influence on later scientists such as Galileo and Johannes Kepler, who adopted, championed and (especially in Kepler's case) sought to improve it. However, in the years following publication of de Revolutionibus, for leading astronomers such as Erasmus Reinhold, the key attraction of Copernicus's ideas was that they reinstated the idea of uniform circular motion for the planets.^[42]

During the 17th century, several further discoveries eventually led to the wider acceptance of heliocentrism:

In 1725, James Bradley discovered stellar aberration, an apparent annual motion of stars around small ellipses, and attributed it to the finite speed of light and the motion of Earth in its orbit around the Sun.^[45]

In 1838, Friedrich Bessel made the first successful measurements of annual parallax for the star 61 Cygni, of 0.314 arcseconds; which indicated that the star was 10.3 ly away, close to the currently accepted value of 11.4 ly. He narrowly beat Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and Thomas Henderson, who measured the parallaxes of Vega and Alpha Centauri in the same year.

Modern historiography

Whether Copernicus' propositions were "revolutionary" or "conservative" has been a topic of debate in the historiography of science.

In his book The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), Arthur Koestler attempted to deconstruct the Copernican "revolution" by portraying Copernicus as a coward who was reluctant to publish his work due to a crippling fear of ridicule.

Thomas Kuhn argued that Copernicus only transferred "some properties to the Sun's many astronomical functions previously attributed to the earth."{{citation needed|date=April 2017}}

Other historians{{who|date=April 2017}} have since argued that Kuhn underestimated what was "revolutionary" about Copernicus' work, and emphasized the difficulty Copernicus would have had in putting forward a new astronomical theory relying alone on simplicity in geometry, given that he had no experimental evidence.

See also

Notes

1. ^¹{{harvnb|Kuhn|1985}}
2. ^Gingerich, O. "Did Copernicus Owe a Debt to Aristarchus?" Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol.16, NO.1/FEB, pp.37, 39, 1985
3. ^Heath (1913), [https://archive.org/stream/aristarchusofsam00heatuoft#page/302/mode/2up p. 302].
4. ^Lucio Russo, Silvio M. Medaglia, Sulla presunta accusa di empietà ad Aristarco di Samo, in "Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica", n.s. 53 (82) (1996), pp. 113–121
5. ^Lucio Russo, The forgotten revolution, Springer (2004)
6. ^{{Citation |last=Ragep |first=F. Jamil |year=2001a |title=Tusi and Copernicus: The Earth's Motion in Context |journal=Science in Context |volume=14 |issue=1–2 |pages=145–163 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/s0269889701000060}}
7. ^{{Citation |last=Ragep |first=F. Jamil |year=2001b |title=Freeing Astronomy from Philosophy: An Aspect of Islamic Influence on Science |journal=Osiris, 2nd Series |volume=16 |issue=Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions |pages=49–64 & 66–71 |bibcode = 2001Osir...16...49R |doi=10.1086/649338 |last2=Al-Qushji |first2=Ali}}
8. ^{{citation|title=Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi on Physics and the Nature of the Physical World: A Preliminary Survey|author=Adi Setia|journal=Islam & Science|volume=2|year=2004|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QYQ/is_2_2/ai_n9532826/|accessdate=2010-03-02}}
9. ^{{Cite journal| volume = 108| issue = 67| pages = 762| last = Alessandro Bausani| title = Cosmology and Religion in Islam| journal = Scientia/Rivista di Scienza| date = 1973}}
10. ^{{Cite book| publisher = SUNY Press| isbn = 9781438414195| last = Nasr| first = Seyyed Hossein| title = An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines| date = 1993-01-01|page=135}}
11. ^¹²{{Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 9780521028875| editor-last1 = Young| editor-first1 = M. J. L.| title = Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period| date = 2006-11-02|page=413}}
12. ^{{cite encyclopedia | editor = Thomas Hockey | last = Samsó | first = Julio | title=Biṭrūjī: Nūr al‐Dīn Abū Isḥāq [Abū Jaʿfar] Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al‐Biṭrūjī | encyclopedia = The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers | publisher = Springer | date = 2007 | location = New York | pages = 133–4 | url=http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Bitruji_BEA.htm | isbn=978-0-387-31022-0|ref=harv|display-editors=etal}} (PDF version)
13. ^¹{{cite encyclopedia | last = Samsó | first = Julio | title =Al-Bitruji Al-Ishbili, Abu Ishaq| encyclopedia = Dictionary of Scientific Biography | publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons | location = New York | year=1970–80 | isbn = 0-684-10114-9 | url = http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830904829.html}}
14. ^Gingerich, O. "Did Copernicus Owe a Debt to Aristarchus?" Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol.16, NO.1/FEB, P. 37, 1985
15. ^{{harvnb|Esposito|1999|page=289}}
16. ^{{Cite book| publisher = NYU Press| isbn = 9780814780237| last = Saliba| first = George| title = A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam| date = 1995-07-01}}
17. ^{{Cite journal| issn = 0003-049X| volume = 117| issue = 6| page = 424| last = Swerdlow| first = Noel M.| title = The Derivation and First Draft of Copernicus's Planetary Theory: A Translation of the Commentariolus with Commentary| journal = Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society| date = 1973-12-31| jstor = 986461}}
18. ^{{cite encyclopedia | editor = Thomas Hockey | display-editors = etal | last = King | first = David A. | title=Ibn al‐Shāṭir: ʿAlāʾ al‐Dīn ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm | encyclopedia = The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers | publisher = Springer | date = 2007 | location = New York | pages = 569–70 | url=http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Ibn_al-Shatir_BEA.htm | isbn=978-0-387-31022-0}} (PDF version)
19. ^Linton (2004, pp.[https://books.google.com/books?id=aJuwFLGWKF8C&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q&f=false 124],[https://books.google.com/books?id=aJuwFLGWKF8C&pg=PA137#v=onepage&q&f=false 137–38)], Saliba (2009, pp.160–65).
20. ^Goddu (2010, pp.261–69, 476–86), Huff (2010, [https://books.google.com/books?id=xNSPo_Xda_0C&pg=PA263#v=onepage&q&f=false pp.263–64)], di Bono (1995), Veselovsky (1973).
21. ^{{Cite book| publisher = I.B.Tauris| isbn = 9781784531386| last = Freely| first = John| title = Light from the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam Helped to Shape the Western World| date = 2015-03-30| page=179}}
22. ^"Averroes' criticism of Ptolemaic astronomy precipitated this debate in Europe. [...] The recovery of Ptolemy's texts and their translation from Greek into Latin in the middle of the fifteenth century stimulated further consideration of these issues." Osler (2010), p.42
23. ^George Saliba (1979). "The First Non-Ptolemaic Astronomy at the Maraghah School", Isis 70 (4), p. 571-576.
24. ^Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin Books, 1959, p. 212.
25. ^McCluskey (1998), pp. 27
26. ^Koestler (1989), pp. 69-72
27. ^Gingerich (2004), p. 53
28. ^Koestler (1989), p.194
29. ^Koestler (1989), pp. 579-80
30. ^Gingerich (2004), pp.31–32
31. ^Gingerich (2004), p.139
32. ^Koestler (1989), p.196
33. ^Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
34. ^Gingerich (2004), p.248
35. ^Hanne Andersen, Peter Barker, and Xiang Chen. The Cognitive Structure of Scientific Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. pp 138-148
36. ^{{harvnb|Kuhn|1985|pages=200–202}}
37. ^Linton (2004, [https://books.google.com/books?id=aJuwFLGWKF8C&pg=PA138 pp.138], [https://books.google.com/books?id=aJuwFLGWKF8C&pg=PA169 169]), Crowe (2001, [https://books.google.com/books?id=IGlhN0MI87oC&pg=PA90 pp.90–92]), {{harvnb|Kuhn|1985|pages=165–167}}
38. ^{{harvnb|Gingerich|2011|pages= 134–135}}
39. ^Owen Gingerich, The eye of heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, New York: American Institute of Physics, 1993, 181, {{ISBN|0-88318-863-5}}
40. ^{{cite journal |last=Blair |first=Ann |title=Tycho Brahe's critique of Copernicus and the Copernican system |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=51 |issue=3 |year=1990 |pages=355–377 [p. 364] |jstor=2709620 }}
41. ^Gingerich, O. & Voelkel, J. R., J. Hist. Astron., Vol. 29, 1998, page 1
42. ^Gingerich (2004), pp.23, 55
43. ^Gingerich, 2004, p. 23 and p. 55
44. ^Fixed, that is, in the Copernican system. In a geostatic system the apparent annual variation in the motion of sunspots could only be explained as the result of an implausibly complicated precession of the Sun's axis of rotation (Linton, 2004, p.212; Sharratt, 1994, p.166; Drake, 1970, pp.191–196)
45. ^{{cite book |last=Hirschfeld |first=Alan |title=Parallax:The Race to Measure the Cosmos |year=2001 |publisher=Henry Holt |location=New York |isbn=0-8050-7133-4}}

Heliocentrism before Copernicus

Antiquity

Middle Ages

The Ptolemaic system

Copernican theory

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

Copernican Revolution

Modern historiography

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links