3 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Good Guy Johannes Kepler.
The idea of elliptical orbits is rather old, although it got lost/lost its significance, until Kepler's work some 500 years later.[1] Interesting, it came out of Afghanistan.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Bayroni#Mathematics_and_Astronomy
Biruni (930--1048 repeatedly attacks Aristotle's celestial physics: he argues by simple experiment that vacuum must exist; he is "amazed" by the weakness of Aristotle's argument against elliptical orbits on the basis that they would create vacuum; he attacks the immutability of the celestial spheres;...
Comment by badcatdog at 01/04/2012 at 01:54 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
TIL!