Models of the Solar System

Hi all,

I'm giving an introductory talk on astronomy next week and one of the
topics I'm covering is the Solar System. I can find all the info I want
on the Solar System as it is now, but I'm having trouble finding
information and images on the earlier models, and in particular how they
came up with 'solutions' to the erratic motion of the planets in the
sky.

Does anyone have any links to websites that could help me out?

--
Conor
I souport publik edukashen.

Well, I've just read Simon Singh's book 'Big Bank.' He went throught most of
the original models of the solar system and made it all quite accessible to
a non-scientist.

ed mcdermott wrote:
Well, I've just read Simon Singh's book 'Big Bank.'

I thought that was about HSBC.

Best,
Stephen

Remove footfrommouth to reply

--
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ Stephen Tonkin | ATM Resources; Astro-Tutorials; Astro Books +
+ (N51.162 E0.995) | http://astunit.com +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

To Conor

You are asking the wrong people in UK.SCI.ASTRONOMY for they use a
solution based on Newton's unecessary and inappropriate jumping to the
Sun to explain retrograde motion *.

The first heliocentrists such as Copernicus Kepler and Galileo
accounted for the backward arc of the planets Jupiter and Saturn to a
faster Earth taking and inner orbital circuit which subsequently infers
a heliocentric axis common to all the planets.You can accepted Newton's
mangled view but if you really wish to do your class a favor,I strongly
suggest the original Copernican reasoning with time lapse footage of
Jupiter and Saturn in retrograde.


http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...2000_tezel.gif

" In this arrangement, therefore, we discover a marvelous symmetry
of the universe, and an established harmonious linkage between the
motion of the spheres and their size, such as can be found in no other
way. For this permits a not inattentive student to perceive why the
forward and backward arcs appear greater in Jupiter than in Saturn and
smaller than in Mars, and on the other hand greater in Venus than in
Mercury. This reversal in direction appears more frequently in Saturn
than in Jupiter, and also more rarely in Mars and Venus than in
Mercury..... All these phenomena proceed from the same
cause, which is in the earth's motion.


Yet none of these phenomena appears in the fixed stars. This
proves their immense height, which makes even the sphere of the annual
motion, or its reflection, vanish from before our eyes." Copernicus

If you come to appreciate the exquisite reasoning of how the first
heliocentrists focused on the motion of the Earth in accounting for
retrograde you will absolutely hate the Newtonian version -






* " For to the earth they appear sometimes direct, sometimes
stationary, nay, and sometimes retrograde. But from the sun they are
always seen direct.."

http://members.tripod.com/~gravitee/phaenomena.htm

Before the heliocentric model was rediscovered, the geocentric model was
modified by the addition of "epicycles", so that each planet was supposedly
moving uniformly in a circular orbit about a point that was itself moving
uniformly in a circular orbit around "The Earth". It is a pity that the men
who devised this did not have access to modern computers, or they would have
noticed the centres of the epicycles keeping very close to the Sun. They
might then have realised that the planets were actually orbiting the Sun and
it might then have occurred to them that they were themselves living on such
a planet.

"Conor" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I'm giving an introductory talk on astronomy next week and one of the
topics I'm covering is the Solar System. I can find all the info I want
on the Solar System as it is now, but I'm having trouble finding
information and images on the earlier models, and in particular how they
came up with 'solutions' to the erratic motion of the planets in the
sky.

Does anyone have any links to websites that could help me out?

--
Conor
I souport publik edukashen.