Thinking Outside the Sphere Views of the Stars from Aristotle to Herschel Thinking Outside the Sphere

Home , 68 Draconis, Andreas Cellarius, Armillary sphere, Astrolabe, Celestial spheres, Christoph Scheiner

A Constellation of Rare Books from the History of Science Collection

The exhibition was made possible by generous support from

Mr. & Mrs. James B. Hebenstreit and Mrs. Lathrop M. Gates.

CATALOG OF THE EXHIBITION Linda Hall Library Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology

Cynthia J. Rogers, Curator 5109 Cherry Street Kansas City MO 64110

Thinking Outside the Sphere is held in copyright by the Linda Hall Library, 2010, and any reproduction of text or images requires permission. The Linda Hall Library is an independently funded library devoted to science, engineering and technology which is used extensively by The exhibition opened at the Linda Hall Library April 22 and closed companies, academic institutions and individuals throughout the world. September 18, 2010.

The Library was established by

the wills of Herbert and Linda Hall and opened in 1946.

It is located on a 14 acre arboretum in Kansas City, Missouri, the site of the former home of Herbert and Linda Hall.

Sources of images on preliminary pages:

Page 1, cover left: Peter Apian. Cosmographia, 1550. We invite you to visit the Library or our website at www.lindahlll.org.

Page 1, right: Camille Flammarion. L'atmosphère météorologie populaire, 1888.

Page 3, Table of contents: Leonhard Euler. Theoria motuum planetarum et cometarum, 1744.

Table of Contents Introduction Section1 The Ancient Universe Section2 The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Section3 The Sun Takes Center Stage Section4 The Spheres of the Planets Shatter Section5 The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Section6 Motive Forces and the Stars Section7 Plurality of Worlds Section8 Measuring the Distance to the Stars Section9 From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Section10 The First Map of the Galaxy Multiple Galaxies Confirmed: Coda Bibliography of Works Exhibited References from Secondary Sources

List of Secondary Works Cited About the Exhibit

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE COLLECTION is the Library's special collection of rare books on science, engineering, and technology. It includes printed books from the fifteenth century to the present. Additional materials to support historical research are available in the Library's general collections of over one million volumes.

Introduction: From a Crystalline Sphere to a Plurality of Renaissance works of astronomy beautifully illustrate the Worlds stars fixed in a crystalline sphere at the perimeter of an earth-centered universe that had been conceived in ancient times. This sphere of the fixed stars was thought to rotate, setting the lower spheres of the planets in motion in their orbits around the unmoving earth.

Nicolaus Copernicus stopped the motion of the stars but preserved them in their sphere. When a comet passed through the supposed solid spheres of the planets in 1577 and proved them to be nonexistent, astronomers rejected the concept of an orb of the stars as well, allowing them to be dispersed.

In 1644, René Descartes placed our sun among the stars and appointed them with their own satellites, heralding a dramatic change in our perception of the universe. In the eighteenth century, the sun and other stars were Andreas Cellarius. Harmonia macrocosmica, 1661. perceived as comprising a star system, resulting in the

To view images at high resolution, go to http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/ first map of the galaxy in 1785. Place cursor over “Collections” and select History of Cosmology .

Table of Contents

Section 1: The Ancient Universe

Ancient philosophers set the stage for the role that the stars would play until the seventeenth century. Plato's Timaeus established the sphere of the stars and its circular movement. He described the sphere's dominion over the motion of the planets and sketched in broad strokes the size, speed, and direction of their orbits within it.

Aristotle provided the physical foundations for the motions of the planets, defining the number of spheres required to account for their observed motions. He established the necessity of the role of the fixed stars in moving the planets in their orbits.

Epicycles were fully integrated into this earth-centered system by Ptolemy in part to account for retrograde

motion. He refined the model into an effective and Johannes Blaeu. Atlas maior, siue, Cosmographia Blauiana, 1662 (v.1, intro). accurate tool for predicting the motions of the planets.

Table of Contents

Section 1: The Ancient Universe

Plato (427-347 BCE). Timaeus. Paris: Badius Ascencius, 1520.

Plato's cosmological work, Timaeus, introduced the concept of the sphere of the stars. The whole sphere was “a true cosmos or glorious world spangled…all over” with the stars. The starry sphere controlled the motion of the planets contained within it. In his Republic, this idea was part of a tale of a soldier, slain in battle, who returned to life while on his funeral pyre and told of what his soul had seen during a journey that seemed to last a thousand years. This hero, named Er, had traveled to a column of light, like a spindle, that extended up into the sky. The universe fitted onto it like a whorl of nested hemispheres. “There is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and…others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another. The largest is spangled...” and the others carried the planets.

BibrefsPlato1520

Section 1: The Ancient Universe

Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Opera. Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1495.

This volume, open to the first page of Aristotle’s On the Heavens, is one of a set of five that comprise the first publication of Aristotle’s works in their original Greek. Aristotle, a student of Plato, lent his genius to a comprehensive treatment of cosmology that matched his brilliant investigations into the rest of the natural world. In the process, he established the necessity of the spherical shape of the universe.

BibrefsAristotle1495

Section 1: The Ancient Universe

Aristotle. (384-322 BCE). Aristotelis Stagiritae De coelo… Cum Averrois ... variis in eosdem commentariis. Venice: Iuntas, 1550.

This commentary on Aristotle’s De Caelo (On the Heavens) was written by the twelfth century philosopher Averroes. Aristotle assigned the motion of the sphere of the stars to God as the final cause. This heavenly source of rotation was associated with its shape. “The perfect is naturally prior to the imperfect, and the circle is a perfect thing.....it follows that the body which revolves with a circular movement must be spherical... The bodies below the sphere of the planets are contiguous with the sphere above them. The sphere then will be spherical throughout.”

BibrefsAristotle1550

Section 1: The Ancient Universe

Regiomontanus (1436-1476) Epytoma in Almagestu Ptolemei. Venice: Landoia, 1496.

The second century astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy, revolutionized astronomy by transforming the concentric spheres model into a highly effective tool for predicting the motions of the planets. His epic mathematical achievement was simply called the Almagest, or “great work.” This fifteenth century epitome of his book is one of the most highly regarded distillations of Ptolemy’s Almagest ever printed. An accomplished astronomer and a master of the Greek language, Regiomontanus took over the project from Georg von Peurbach, who had completed the first six (of thirteen) chapters before his death. Although Regiomontanus completed it in 1462, it was not printed until after Regiomontanus had also died. In this image, the author and Ptolemy sit together below a model of the geocentric system, with the starry vault above. Although the two astronomers were separated by a dozen centuries, the view of the cosmos had changed but little.

BibrefsRegiomontanus1495

Section 1: The Ancient Universe

Ptolemy (100-170 CE) Almagestum. Venice: Petrus Liechtenstein, 1515.

Ptolemy made precise observations of the stars, and recorded them in his star catalog. It is printed for the first time in this edition of his Almagest. On this page, the decorated initial letter “B” shows one astronomer making observations while the another records them. The sphere of the fixed stars was at the perimeter of Ptolemy’s astronomical system, but the orbits of the planets in his system no longer reflected its symmetry. Ptolemy diverged from Aristotle’s ideal system by introducing the idea that the earth was not the precise center of the orbits of the planets. This insistence upon representing the true motion of the celestial bodies made them seem more real and less divine. For this he was criticized by some philosophers.

BibrefsPtolemy1515

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System In the Renaissance few ancient ideas were more

esteemed than the spherical form that was ascribed to the starry realm. The heavenly vault was celebrated in words and engravings. Many earth- centered works of astronomy were published long after Copernicus suggested placing the sun in the center of the universe in 1543. In this 1617 work by Robert Fludd, Astronomia is shown chained to the power of the Deity, conferring the astrological influences of the celestial bodies onto the earth, where they affect human activities. Astronomia’s crown, intersecting the eighth sphere, relays the motion of the stars to the planets, setting the Ptolemaic universe in motion. For this author and many others, the heavenly spheres of the planets continued to move by the guided influence of the outermost sphere of the fixed stars.

Robert Fludd. Utriusque cosmi maioris, 1617.

Table of Contents

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Peurbach, Georg von. Theoricae novae planetarum. Basel: Henric petrina, 1573.

Building on the work of Apollonius of Perga and particularly of Hipparchus, Ptolemy developed an intricate system to account for the retrograde motion of the planets. In his scheme, each planet was attached to a small circle, called an epicycle, which moved it in a small orbit. The epicycle was attached in turn to a larger circle, or deferent, which moved around the earth. By adjusting the size and speed of these orbits, Ptolemy was able to make his system match the observed motions of the planets. Peurbach gave the theoretical epicyclic system of Ptolemy a more physical presence, making the cosmos seem more tangible. Images of three-dimensional models, such as this one of the orbit of Mercury, emphasized the solid nature of the spheres, as did the text, which described an epicycle as being “immersed in the depth” of its orb, and referred to “the cavity in which the epicycle is situated.” This work was completed by 1454 and was first published in 1472.

BibrefsPeurbach1573

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Sacrobosco, Johannes. De sphaera. Venice: Ratdolt, 1482.

This popular astronomy textbook by a thirteenth century author was produced in numerous versions and iterations. In this edition of the book, the printer Erhard Ratdolt includes another work, by Georg von Peurbach, entitled Theoricae novae planetarum (New theory of the planets), with handcolored illustrations of Peurbach’s work. This one shows the sun in yellow, moving in its epicycle around the earth. The work includes a ten page section “On the motion of the eighth sphere,” or the sphere of the fixed stars.

BibrefsSacrobosco1482

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Schreckenfuchs, Erasmus Oswald. Commentaria, in Nouas theoricas planetarum Georgii Purbachii. Basel: Petri, 1556.

In this commentary of Peurbach’s New theory of the planets, all of Peurbach’s individual diagrams depicting the epicyclic motions of the celestial bodies are gathered together on one plate. During the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries, the spheres of the planets and of the fixed stars were often described as solid, crystalline orbs. These illustrations of hand-held physical models represented the complicated machinations of a real, rather than ideal, Ptolemaic cosmos.

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Sacrobosco, Johannes. Sphaera mundi. Venice: Scoti, 1490.

This edition of Sacrobosco’s textbook is graced with a beautiful frontispiece. It shows a personification of Astronomy enthroned in the center, holding an astrolabe in her right hand and an armillary sphere representing the earth-centered system of Ptolemy in her left. She is flanked by Ptolemy and Urania, the muse of astronomy. The flora and fauna of earth are below them, with the starry vault of the heavens above. It has a section “On the motion of the eighth sphere” that is slightly shorter than in the 1482 edition.

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Hyginus De mundi et sphere. Venice: Sessa, 1512.

This work was usually called the Poeticon Astronomicon. It describes and presents images of the constellations, arranged in the same order as Ptolemy’s catalog of stars. The image on the title page is interesting to compare with the frontispiece of the 1490 edition of Sacrobosco. In the Hyginus, Ptolemy has taken the place of Astronomia in the center, where he is now enthroned. He, instead of Astronomia as in the Sacrobosco, is holding an astrolabe and an armillary sphere, while Astronomia and Urania stand on the earth below, with the stars above them. The zodiac is shown among several heavens above.

BibrefsHyginus1512

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Fine, Oronce. De mundi sphaera. Paris: Colinaei, 1542.

Fine taught mathematics at the Collège Royal in Paris. He wrote several works, including this general treatise of astronomy. It describes the earth, the earth-centered cosmos, and Ptolemy’s epicyclic system. Earlier in his career, Fine was an editor for a Parisian printer. Among the works he edited were Peurbach’s Theoricae novae planetarum, and an edition of Apian’s Cosmographia. He was also a fine artist, creating this stunning illustration himself. It depicts Urania, the muse of astronomy, pointing to an armillary sphere, while the author displays an astrolabe. Some years earlier, Fine had published a book about a similar instrument, called an equatorium, used to predict the positions of the planets. The same goal was achieved in the Ptolemaic astronomical system, represented in the armillary sphere in simple outline.

BibrefsFine1515

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Apian, Peter. Cosmographia. Antwerp: Bontio, 1550.

This image clearly illustrates the earth-centered cosmos. The earth is the central feature, surrounded by the spheres of the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, all encompassed by the eighth sphere of the fixed stars. Beyond this lies the ninth, (“crystalline”) sphere that had been introduced to account for precession. The tenth sphere is that of the Primum Mobile (first mover), which was first described by Aristotle. Beyond the Primum Mobile, which was moved by the spirit of God, lies the celestial heaven, inhabited by God and the fortunate elect.

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Fludd, Robert. Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia. Oppenheim: Aere Johan- Theodori de Bry ; typis Hieronymi Galleri, 1617.

Fludd presents the cosmos as a biblical allegory in this image. The globe of the earth is illustrated with the figures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; the narrative of Creation in Genesis is represented by the fish of the sea and birds of the air. The sun, moon, and planets created on the fourth day are shown in the middle region. The thin sphere of the fixed stars is insignificant compared to the abundant realm of the angels. Divided according to tradition into three spheres, the angels represent nine orders, or Angelic Choirs. Nearest to the sphere of the fixed stars are the angels that serve as messengers to humankind. In the next row, or heaven, are the angels representing justice. The angels in the outermost row are the Seraphim and Cherubim, who guard the throne of God. The dove represents the Holy Spirit.

BibrefsFludd1617

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Gallucci, Giovanni Paolo. Theatrum mundi, et temporis. Venice: Apud Ioannem Baptistam Somascum, 1588.

This unusual image captures the three dimensional aspect of the crystalline sphere of the fixed stars; it was more often shown in cross section as a ring. The “eighth sphere,” as the heading reads, is transparent, and the earth can be seen clearly through it. While the illustration is depicting a tabletop model, the idea that it conveys about the stars agrees with the persistent perception of some astronomers that the stars were held within a solid orb. Although this work appeared sixty years after Copernicus introduced his sun-centered system, it depicts only the earth-centered system, describing the epicycles of Ptolemy.

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Clavius, Christoph. In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentaries. Rome: Helianum, 1570.

Clavius was a gifted and influential Jesuit mathematician. As a professor at the Collegio Romano, his impressive application of mathematics to astronomy drew many more Jesuit students into the field. Clavius understood the mathematical concepts of the Copernican system, but he was a confirmed geocentrist, arguing forcefully against the motion of the earth. Like Aristotle, he believed that the unmoving earth was at the center of the universe, as represented in this image.

BibrefsClavius1570

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Clavius, Christoph. Operum mathematicorum . Mainz: sumptibus Antonii Hierat; Excudebat Reinhardus Eltz, 1611.

The suggestion that the earth moved was an insult to Clavius’ faith. This title page features two illustrations of Bible passages that were thought to conflict with the Copernican system. The round vignette at the right shows Joshua and his army in battle, and a miracle: “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down” until they were victorious. This seemed to prove that the sun moves; not the earth. In the round vignette at the left, a miracle from the second book of Kings is shown. When Hezekiah was about to die, God moved the shadow on a sundial back ten degrees as a sign proving to Hezekiah that he would live. This was taken to mean that the sun had moved backward, again providing scriptural evidence that the sun, not the earth, moves.

BibrefsClavius1611

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Scheiner, Christoph. Disquisitiones mathematicae de controversiis et novitatibus astronomicis. Ingolstadt: Ex typographeo Ederiano apud Elisabetham Angermariam, 1614.

Aristotle’s spherical cosmos was admired by Christoph Scheiner, a Jesuit professor of mathematics at Ingolstadt, Germany. Like Clavius, Scheiner rejected the sun-centered system of Copernicus. In this illustration, he demonstrates why it would be impossible for the earth to rotate by providing a few examples. Birds would lose their way and cannonballs would miss their mark if the earth turned below them. The rotation of the earth is indeed counterintuitive, and the apparent absurdity of the idea was a major reason for its rejection until Galileo began to convince astronomers of the logic of it in his Dialogue of 1632. The sphere of the fixed stars continued to be perceived as the motive force for the planets until motion was finally awarded to the earth instead.

BibrefsScheiner1614

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Gassendi, Pierre. Institutio astronomica. London: Typis Jacobi Flesher; Prostant apud Gulielmum Morden, 1653.

This is an example of an illustration of the earth-centered cosmos that is found in a work that actually argues against that model. Gassendi preferred the sun-centered system, although he considered it to be unproven. Gassendi subscribed to an atomistic theory of his own, influenced by the ancient atomists and René Descartes, but less mechanistic and differently imbued with the divine. Gassendi suggested that the magnetic force that Johann Kepler ascribed to the sun, holding the planets around it in their orbits, was an effect of moving particles.

BibrefsGassendi1653

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System

Lipstorp, Daniel. Specimina philosophiae Cartesianae. Quibus accredit ijusdem authoris Copernicus redivivus. Leiden: apud Johannem & Danielem Elsevier. 1653.

This is another example of a geocentric image used in a book arguing against that model. Lipstorp subscribed to the universal system of Descartes. The heading above the illustration describes it as the “absurd hypothesis” of Ptolemy. Lipstorp and other astronomers objected not only to the complicated epicycles (that cannot be shown in the image), but also to the number of heavenly spheres. In the diagram, the ninth sphere, beyond the eighth sphere of the fixed stars, was to account for precession; the tenth, or primum mobile, caused the motion of those below, and the eleventh was heaven, or the “coelum empyreum.” Some astronomers substituted a sphere to account for trepidation for the primum mobile. Some Jesuit astronomers restricted the heavens to the three in scripture: the empyreum, the sidereum, and the aereum, rejecting the other spheres as mathematical constructs.

BibrefsLipstorp1650

Section 3: The Sun Takes Center Stage

Section 3: The Copernican system retained the sphere of the fixed stars when it was presented in 1543, and for that reason The Sun Takes Center Stage supporters of both the sun-centered universe and the earth-centered cosmos visualized the stars in their appointed outermost sphere. Below, the Ptolemaic, Copernican and Tychonic models of the universe all display the starry border. The sphere of stars was often illustrated in the form of the figured zodiac. Not apparent in the heliocentric images is the revolution of the earth which replaced the motion of the stellar orb.

Johannes Blaeu. Atlas maior, siue, Cosmographia Blauiana, 1662 (v.1, intro).

Table of Contents

Johann Zahn. Specula physico-mathematico-historica notabilium ac mirabilium sciendorum, 1696.

Section 3: The Sun Takes Center Stage

Cellarius, Andreas. Harmonia macrocosmica, sev Atlas universalis et nouus. Amsterdam: apud Joannem Janssonium, 1661.

When the printer, Janson, conceived this astronomical atlas, he wished to present, in a realistic manner, “the concavity or hollow and interior curve of the heavenly sphere;” his words indicate the persistence of the idea of the spherical universe. Cellarius was selected as the author of the text and chief designer of the entire work. This richly illustrated handcolored engraving of the sun-centered system portrays Copernicus in the lower right corner, with Ptolemy across from him. Echoing Aristotle, Copernicus had written in 1543 in his famous work On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres: “the universe is spherical; partly because this form… is the most perfect of all.” He then parts radically with the ancient philosopher: “But in the center of all resides the Sun. Who, indeed, in this most magnificent temple would put the light in another, or in a better place than that one wherefrom it could at the same time illuminate the whole of it?”

BibrefsCellarius1661

Section 3: The Sun Takes Center Stage

Scheuchzer, Johann. Phisica sacra. Augsburg: [s.n.], 1734.

The sphere of the fixed stars was often represented by the more visually exciting, figured zodiac. Known as the “Copper Bible” (it illustrates the bible with images from the field of science), this work contains hundreds of copperplate engravings created by more than a dozen artists. This illustration of the cosmos presents an extremely small representation of the earth. It is interesting to compare this to the very prominent earth featured in the Cellarius plate. In the seventeenth century, the memory of the earth’s central position in the geocentric universe continued to enhance its importance in illustrations; by the eighteenth century it was sometimes viewed as just another planet as in this engraving.

Section 3: The Sun Takes Center Stage

Wing, Vincent. Harmonicon coeleste : or, The coelestiall harmony of the visible world. London: Printed by Robert Leybourn, for the Company of Stationers, 1651.

Early in his career, Vincent Wing was a geocentrist, but by the time this book was printed, Wing and most serious astronomers had accepted heliocentrism. The sphere of the fixed stars is delicately shown at the perimeter of his diagram. Copernicus himself retained the sphere of the fixed stars in part because it provided a frame for his system, but it no longer moved the spheres below it. Until the Copernican system was a proven fact, the role of the outermost sphere of the stars was undecided. After Galileo successfully argued that the sun- centered system was true (his observations of a full set of phases of Venus would not be visible in Ptolemy’s system) and not simply a mathematical construct, astronomers eventually accepted that the sphere of the stars did not move the spheres of the planets.

BibrefsWing1651

Section 3: The Sun Takes Center Stage

Wright, Thomas. Clavis coelestis. London: Printed for the Author; and sold by E. Cave [et al], 1742.

In this dramatic image of the solar system, the sphere of the fixed stars is replaced with the symbol of infinity: a snake eating its tail. The heading pays homage to the very ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras. One of his followers, Philolaus, conceived of a cosmos that placed the earth among the other planets, orbiting a central fire. Philolaus is indeed the ancient author whose cosmology is cited by Copernicus in his dedication to his 1543 work: “Some think that the Earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the Sun and Moon, it revolves around the Fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the Earth move… like a wheel in a rotation… about its own center.” In referring to ancient sources, Copernicus sought to soften the shocking novelty of the orbit and rotation of the earth in his system.

BibrefsWright1742

Section 4: The Spheres of the Planets Shatter

Section 4: Since ancient times, the heavenly realm of the planets The Spheres of the Planets Shatter and stars was considered eternal and unchanging. Aristotle wrote that no changes had ever been recorded there. But observations of a new star and a comet altered that perception.

In 1572, Tycho Brahe discovered a new star (we would call it a supernova today) that appeared in the constellation Cassiopia, in the sphere of the fixed stars. The event proved that the realm of the stars underwent change after all, and the stars seemed suddenly less fixed in their orb.

In 1577, Brahe discovered a comet crashing through spaces where spheres of the planets were supposed to be. The discovery caused many astronomers to abandon the idea of planetary spheres and accept that the space they occupied was more fluid. Aristotle wrote that the sphere is the one shape that our Tycho Brahe. De mundi aetherei, 1603. perfect cosmos must have. The new star in the heavens, signifying change and therefore imperfection, together with the loss of the planetary orbs, challenged the nested spheres model. Table of Contents

Section 4: The Spheres of the Planets Shatter

Brahe, Tycho. Learned: Tico Brahæ, his astronomicall coniectur of the new and much admired [star]. London: by B[ernard] A[lsop] and T[homas F[awcet] for Michaell [Sparks] and Samuell Nealand, 1632.

Tycho Brahe made regular observations of the stars and planets, and one fall evening in 1572 while walking outdoors, he looked up at the sky and saw something strange. He was thoroughly familiar with the arrangement of the stars, and this night there was a bright star in the constellation of Cassiopeia that had never been there before. He had observed a new star, or what we would call a supernova today. He was overwhelmed by the experience: I was so astonished at this sight that I was not ashamed to doubt the trustworthiness of my own eyes…A miracle indeed…the greatest of all that have occurred in the whole range of nature since the beginning of the world. Aristotle had taught that no changes occurred in the realm of the stars and planets, and this discovery challenged that doctrine. This rare translation was the first appearance in English of Brahe’s original 1573 work.

BibrefsBrahe1632

Section 4: The Spheres of the Planets Shatter

Blaue, Johannes. Atlas maior, siue, Cosmographia Blauiana. v.1. Amsterdam: Labore & sumptibus Ioannis Blaeu, 1662.

“Your Majesty must on no account permit Tycho to leave,” wrote a Danish nobleman to the king, “for Denmark would lose its greatest ornament.” Tycho Brahe was one of the world’s greatest astronomers, and he is shown here in this engraving of a painting that was on the wall above one of his astronomical instruments, the mural quadrant. This was part of his observatory, Uraniborg, on the island of Hven. The king had presented Brahe with liberal funds to design and build the impressive facility, which dominated the island. In 1577, Brahe observed a comet there and made the astounding discovery that the comet was not confined to the sub-lunar sphere, but had crashed through the spaces where the planetary spheres were thought to be. This was a direct challenge to the Aristotelian spheres of the planets. Tycho responded by producing his own universal system without solid spheres, presented in his work: The Most Recent Phenomena of the Ethereal World. In that treatise he announced: “Truly there are no Orbs in reality in the Heavens…but those which the experts have invented for the sake of appearances…”

BibrefsBlaeu1662

Section 4: The Spheres of the Planets Shatter

Kepler, Johannes. De stella nova in pede Serpentarii. Prague: Typis Pauli Sessii; impensis authoris 1606.

New stars continued to blot what Aristotle had called the “incorruptible” realm of the celestial heavens. A new star in the constellation Cygnus was discovered in 1600 by William Blaeu, the astronomer/printer whose son produced the sumptuous atlas in this case. That star is shown here in this work by Johann Kepler, who himself discovered a new star in 1604 in the constellation Opiuchus, the Serpent-Bearer. While Kepler acknowledged change in the stellar sphere, he did not dissolve it. He estimated its extent to be 2000 times larger than the orbit of Saturn. He rejected the planetary spheres, writing (as a passing phrase in his profoundly influential work of astronomy published in 1609): “Now Tycho himself destroyed the notion of real orbs.”

BibrefsKepler1606

Section 4: The Spheres of the Planets Shatter

Kepler, Johannes. De cometis libelli tres. Augsburg: Typis Andreae Apergeri, 1619.

Astronomers such as Georg von Peurbach had increased the perception that the planetary spheres were solid, rather than geometrical devices alone. But Tycho Brahe’s analysis of the comet of 1577 shattered the solid spheres. Other comets continued to soar through the now-fluid realm of the planets. This book by Kepler, describing his observations of the comets of 1607 and 1618, includes this impressive image showing the trajectory of a comet passing through the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and Earth. The comet with its tail is shown in its position at various dates during its appearance.

Section 4: The Spheres of the Planets Shatter

Beati, Gabriele. Sphaera triplex … Rome: Typis Varesij, 1662.

Beati wished to show the physical appearance of the cosmos; he did not show the purely geometrical lines of the planetary orbits in this unusual image. The planets seem to float aimlessly in a fluid medium, but Tycho Brahe’s system has been shown to correspond to the image when superimposed over it. The depiction of the sphere of the fixed stars as having an irregular edge is also uncommon. The edge has hollows that accommodate the supercelestial waters that cool the firmament, according to Beati’s interpretation of scripture. Invoking an ancient Greek comparison, Beati wrote that the planets move through the fluid heaven as birds fly through air or fishes swim in the sea. Christoph Clavius specifically rejected this comparison, presenting it as an absurdity. He preferred explanations derived from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which described “the number of all the spheres, both those which move the planets and those which counteract these.”

BibrefsBeati1662

Section 5: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Section 5:

The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves Inspired by the comet of 1577 that signaled the rejection of the concept of planetary spheres, Giordano Bruno pleaded to abolish the sphere of the fixed stars as well. In 1584, he wrote: "Break and hurl to earth with the resounding whirlwind of lively reasoning...the adamantine walls of the...ultimate sphere." The time had come. If the cosmos had no solid planetary spheres, it was difficult to rationalize one for the stars. Some astronomers, such as Thomas Digges, dissolved the sphere of the fixed stars after it lost its John Wilkins. A discourse concerning a new world & another planet, 1640 role in moving the planets in the sun-centered (detail). system; others were finally convinced by the comet. Some broadened the sphere, depicting the stars as occupying a thicker stellar orb; a few abolished it altogether. Table of Contents

Section 5: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Bruno, Giordano. De triplici minimo et mensura… Frankfurt: Apud Ioannem Wechelum & Petrum Fischerum , 1591.

After the comet of 1577, Bruno brazenly challenged philosophers to dissolve the sphere of the stars along with the spheres of the planets. Bruno believed, as did other philosophers and many astronomers, that the elaborate geometrical devices of the solid spheres were too far removed from physical reality and from spirituality. This work is the first of a trilogy published in Frankfurt. At his trial (Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600), he stated that this trilogy distilled his entire philosophy. Ostensibly a source book of Euclidean proofs, this volume is instead a statement about what was missing in mathematics: a link to the divinity of number. This image, identified as Temple of Venus, represents the love and divinity present in the atom and in the infinite universe. Bruno carved the woodblocks for the prints himself.

“Convince our minds of the infinite universe. Rend in pieces the concave and convex surfaces which would limit and separate so many elements and heavens. Pour ridicule on deferent orbs and on fixed stars. Break and hurl to earth with the resounding whirlwind of lively reasoning…, the adamantine walls of the primum mobile and the ultimate sphere.” -- Giordano Bruno. From his On the Infinite Universe and Worlds, 1584.

BibrefsBruno1591

Section 5: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Digges, Leonard. A prognostication everlastinge of right good effect, with additions by his sonne Thomas. London: by the widow Orwin, 1596.

A few years before Bruno pleaded to abolish the sphere of the fixed stars, Thomas Digges showed how it could be done in this novel image of the stars released from their sphere. His text provided the first English translation (of part of Book 1) of Copernicus’ work, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Digges presented his extraordinary image as if an infinite universe were a part of the great astronomer’s heliocentric system, although that was not at all the case. The text on the plate describes the stars as residing in an orb, but the fact that it extends “infinitely up” abolished the traditional sphere. Digges received his education from John Dee, a mathematician and alchemist. Dee’s very extensive library included a copy of Lucretius’ work on the infinity of the cosmos, but Digges (unlike Bruno) does not cite the ancient author. Thomas Digges added this image and the translation as an appendix to a new edition of the almanac written by his father (Leonard).

BibrefsDigges1596

Section 5: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Gilbert, William. De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova. Amsterdam: apud L. Elzevirium 1651.

Gilbert is best known for his work published in 1600, De magnete (On the Magnet). In the sixth chapter of that book, Gilbert asks, regarding the Ptolemaic spheres, who “ever has given rational proof that there are any such adamantine spheres at all? No man hath shown this ever.” Regarding the stars, Gilbert asserts that “they are not set in any sphaeric framework or firmament (as is supposed), nor in any vaulted structure.” Several of the cosmological ideas introduced in that work are expanded upon in this later publication, which includes this beautiful plate of the stars scattered freely in space. Gilbert and other authors who no longer accepted physical spheres continued to draw in the imaginary lines of the planetary orbits. In this illustration, Gilbert does not draw in the line of the orbit of earth, perhaps to indicate that the others are theoretical rather than physical as well. He completed the work by 1603 but it was not printed until long afterward.

BibrefsGilbert1651

Section 5: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Kircher, Athanasius. Iter extaticum coeleste . Würzburg: sumptibus Joh. And. & Wolffg. Jun. Endterorum haeredibus, prostat Norimbergae apud eosdem, 1660.

Kircher was a Jesuit scholar and professor of mathematics at the Collegio Romano. He was praised by a contemporary as “the Phoenix amongst the learned men of this century.” He encouraged and contributed to the exchange of ideas in the sciences through correspondence with a huge number of individuals. This work of astronomy is presented as a narrative of his journey with two angels to the limits of the solar system, with descriptions of the planets and cosmos. The engraved title page shows Kircher with one of his angel guides. The universal system shown is that of Tycho Brahe (the text compares and illustrates a variety of universal systems). The sphere of the fixed stars is expanded to a stellar region.

BibrefsKircher1660

Section 5: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Guericke, Otto von. Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) magdeburgica de vacuo spatio primum. Amsterdam: apud Joannem Janssonium a Waesberge, 1672.

Guericke’s experiments on the properties of air lead him to believe that above the atmosphere of earth, our planet was separated from the moon and other planets by empty space. Empty space also separated Saturn, the outermost planet in the solar system, from the nearest star. From there the stars extended into infinite space, separated from each other by about the same distance as our sun from the closest star. Guericke thereby erased the stellar sphere. This image is important not only because the stars are dispersed but also because it includes, for the first time, real named stars shown in their proper places in the stellar region. In the upper left, Lyre Lucida is identified. This refers to the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, which is the star we know as Vega. In the lower right is Canis major, or Sirius, the Dog Star.

BibrefsGuericke1672

Section 5: The Sphere of the Fixed Stars Dissolves

Mesmes, Jean Pierre de. Les institutions astronomiques. Paris: De l'imprimerie de Michel de Vascosan, 1557.

This earth-centered system has a markedly thick sphere of fixed stars, made more unusual by the inclusion of a comet or meteor. Until late in the sixteenth century, those events were normally designated as occurring near the earth, leaving the perfect realm of the stars unscathed. Though this work primarily describes traditional aspects of the geocentric system such as the motion of the stellar sphere and the division between the earthly and the celestial regions, it is noted as one of the earliest French works that also provided a description of the Copernican system. The stars in that model were much further away than in the geocentric system; perhaps that idea was incorporated by expanding the stellar sphere and allowing it a fiery visitor in this image.

BibrefsMesmes1557

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars As the sun-centered system gained acceptance, the role of the stars in moving the planets ended. Without the mechanism of the spheres, other sources of motion had to be found that kept the planets in their orbits. Some returned to Plato, who thought the celestial bodies were besouled and could move themselves. Others called for angels to move the planets, evoking Aristotle’s requirement for eternal planetary movers in the Metaphysics. A more efficient suggestion was God’s commandment to move them by fiat.

William Gilbert offered magnetism as the motive force in 1600, which Kepler assigned to the sun, attracting the planets' orbits around it. While the sun-centered system required these new forces, Descartes' source of motion required a new universal model. His theory of vortices described a fluid medium in the universe that carried the planets around our sun, and the planets of other stars around theirs. The stars, far from acting as an eternal and unchanging source of motion, were dispersed, and were acted upon by the fluid medium. Théodore Barin. Le monde naissant, ou la création du monde, 1686.

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Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Zahn, Johann. Specula physico-mathematico-historica notabilium ac mirabilium sciendorum. Nuremberg: sumptibus Joannis Christophori Lochner, 1696.

Aristotle compared the ultimate motive force of the universe to love. He wrote that the sphere of the fixed stars is moved by God, who “produces motion as being loved, but all other things move by being moved... motion in a circle is the first kind of spatial motion, and this the first mover produces.” God’s power to act by fiat was invoked by some astronomers as the motive force keeping the planets in their orbits after the sphere of the fixed stars dissolved. Introducing the section on astronomy in this encyclopedic work of natural history is this dramatic image of the biblical Creation. It includes a passage from Genesis, and a quote from Psalms: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”

BibrefsZahn

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Gilbert, William. De magnete. Londini :Excudebat Petrus Short, 1600.

Gilbert theorized that the earth is a giant magnet, and that in place of the now dissolved sphere of the fixed stars, magnetism held the planets in their orbits. This diagram records one of his experiments with a terrella, a magnet that had been turned and smoothed into a sphere, with three concentric metal orbs around it. It is shown here in cross section, with the terrella being the innermost circle, surrounded by the three metal orbs. On the surface of the terrella and of each orb, Gilbert had placed compass needles. The dashed lines show that the lines of attraction on each orb match the directions of those on the terrella. Gilbert wrote that “The centre of the magnetic virtues in the earth is the centre of the earth; and in a terrella is the centre of the stone.” Gilbert was an animist in the tradition of Plato; he believed that the earth, planets, and stars had souls. His experiments with magnets showed him that this soul acts “without error, and exerts an unending action, quick, definite, and constant.”

BibrefsGilbert1600

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Kepler, Johann. Astronomia nova. [Heidelberg : G. Voegelinus], 1609.

Kepler applied Gilbert’s magnetism to the sun as the motive force of the cosmos. Kepler presented an analogy, illustrated in this diagram, to describe how the sun’s magnetism moved the planets around it. He described how ferrymen sometimes suspend a cable high above a river and tether the boat to it with another rope, and that in this way, the ferrymen can make “the skiffs go in circles, and play a thousand tricks, without touching the bottom or the banks, but by the use of the oar alone, directing the…flow of the river to their own ends.” In the diagram, the sun is at one focus within the circle. “Let there be a circular river CDE, FGH, and in it a sailor who revolves his oar…The impulse will be less at C than at F, since our river is weak at C and strong at F” corresponding to the shifting speed of a planet.

BibrefsKepler1609

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Descartes, Rene. Principia philosophia. Amsterdam: Apud Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1644

The ancient philosopher Empedocles demonstrated an early cosmological vortex theory by dropping tea leaves into a container of water as he stirred it. The theory proposed infinite worlds that formed and perished, cycling back into the infinite. In this masterpiece of physics, Descartes included a chapter on “the visible universe” in which he presented a complex, evolutionary universal system based on vortices. He described how the planets are carried around the sun through an analogy: “If some straws are floating in the eddy of a river, where the water doubles back on itself and forms a vortex as it swirls; we can see that it carries them along and makes them move in circles with it.” He described the plate: “If S, for example, is the Sun, F,f will be fixed stars, and we will understand that numerous others exist.” The line snaking through the vortices is the path of a comet.

BibrefsDescartes1644

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Seller, John. Atlas coelestis. London: Sold by Ier: Seller & Cha: Price at [the] Hermitage & Phil: Lea at [the] Atlas & Hercules in Cheapside, 1700.

Aristotle wrote that an infinite stellar region cannot rotate. In the earth-centered system, the sphere of the fixed stars did rotate, so it had to be limited in depth. Its motion in turn set the planets in motion. Copernicus stopped the motion of the sphere of the fixed stars and made the earth move instead. This presented a problem: how are the planets moved? While some philosophers proposed that the planets had souls and could move themselves, Descartes sought a mechanical explanation. This image contrasts the universe of Copernicus with that of Descartes. The Copernican system focused on our solar system (this depiction shows the stars dispersed), whereas the

Cartesian cosmos equated our sun with the other stars and emphasized the vast cosmos. Descartes in effect removed our sun from a local context and placed it among the stars, and with them, it was acted upon by the fluid medium.

BibrefsSeller1700

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Newton, Isaac. The mathematical principles of natural philosophy. London: Printed for Benjamin Motte, 1729. Volume 1.

While the Cartesian system would live on in the popular imagination for decades, Newton’s Principia (in the view of many scientists) effectively replaced all previous proposals of motive force with gravity. Mutual attraction, combined with inertia, produced a closed planetary orbit around the sun; a vortex, Newton explained, was neither necessary nor desirable. Newton also politely clarified why magnetism was not a sufficient cause. This frontispiece features a novel view of a novel idea: the sun acting by gravitational attraction on the planets.

BibrefsNewton1729

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Newton, Isaac. The mathematical principles of natural philosophy. London: Printed for Benjamin Motte, 1729. Volume 2.

In Book II, Newton describes extensive experiments that he carried out with pendulums in his investigations into the nature of gravity. In Book III, he stated that gravity affects the bodies of the planets in the solar system in the same way that it pulls bodies toward the earth. Proposition VI continues: “If the circumsolar Planets were supposed to be let fall [as a pendulum] at equal distances from the Sun, they would, in their descent towards the Sun, describe equal spaces in equal times.”

BibrefsNewton1729

Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars

Pemberton , Henry. A view of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy. Printed by S. Palmer, 1728.

This recounting of Newton’s laws of motion is also illustrated with Newton’s pendulum experiments. Gravity would seem to be the ultimate motive force, but Newton did not accept that it was inherent in matter. The idea that an inherent soul moved matter, as in Gilbert’s work, had been replaced with the idea that matter was passive, and God gave matter motion. Kepler suggested that the planets were endowed with intelligence, or Mind, in his early work, but a quote from his Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae is telling of the change: “I deny that the celestial movements are the work of Mind.” Kepler believed, as would Descartes, that God set matter in motion and also continually keeps it in motion. Newton wrote in his Principia that God is substantially present: “In him all things are contained and moved, but he does not act on them nor they on him;” God was simply always and everywhere.

BibrefsPemberton1728

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Section 7: Once the stars were scattered, they were celebrated as suns with their own satellites. Descartes' mechanism of Plurality of Worlds vortices was only a part of his theory of motion published in 1644. It also included the concept of multiple solar systems derived from the ancient atomists. His influential philosophy, combined with his humble images of stars with satellites moving in a fluid medium, inspired many interpretations.

The arresting images of the Cartesian cosmos are fascinating testaments to a radical shift in the perception of the universe. They dramatically placed our sun among the other stars; it joined them in the heavens. In common with our sun, the other stars were given their own planets. The idea that other planets have similarities to earth encouraged a discussion of extraterrestrial life. Christiaan Huygens wrote in 1698 that "it's not improbable that the rest of the planets have their Dress and Furniture, nay and their Inhabitants too as well as Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle. Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes, 1686 this Earth of ours." [detail].

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Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Huygens, Christiaan. The celestial worlds discover'd. London: Printed for Timothy Childe, 1698.

Huygens proposed that “there are a multitude of Earths inhabited and adorned as well as our own.” He described our solar system, suggesting that it demonstrated that the other planets had similarities to earth: they are round (and therefore also rotate), they receive light from the sun, and two of them (Jupiter and Saturn) have moons just as earth has a moon. He then concluded: “Now since in so many things they thus agree, what can be more probable than that in others they agree too; and that the other planets are as beautiful and as well stock’d with Inhabitants as the Earth?”

BibrefsHuygens1698

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Huygens, Christaan. Cosmotheoros, eller Werlds Beskådare. Upsala : Tryckt på egen bekostnad af Johan Edman, Kongl. Acad. Boltryctare, 1774.

In thinking about life on other planets, Huygens even tried to imagine how the sky would appear to the inhabitants. The image of Saturn, for example, illustrates Huygens’ discussion of the appearance of that planet’s ring to its residents: “Those that live about the poles within the arches CAD, EBF, (if the cold will suffer anybody to live there) will never have sight of the ring. Those that dwell between the Polar Circle CD and the Equator TV” would see the ring, but as the planet turned, the ring would hide the sun, causing sudden darkness to fall. At that time, “their Moons are their only Comfort.”

BibrefsHuygens1774

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Huygens, Christaan. Opera varia. Lugduni Batavorum : Apud Janssonios Vander Aa, 1724. Vol. 1. (portrait)

Huygens was a brilliant mathematician and physicist. His investigations in optical techniques and astronomy led to his discovery of Titan, the first of Saturn’s moons to be sighted. He also determined that Saturn was surrounded by a ring (the nature of its irregular appearance had been a mystery). As a result of his extensive astronomical observations, Huygens was able to contribute more realistic ideas regarding the conditions for life on Saturn and on the other planets than other authors on the topic.

BibrefsHuygens1724

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Scheiner, Christoph. Rosa Ursina siue Sol. Bracciani: Apud Andream Phaeum Typographum Ducalem, 1630.

This illustration depicts various astronomical instruments used by Scheiner, including an early heliometer used to make observations of the sun (in bottom panel). Prior to Galileo, many scientists believed that the sun, moon, planets and stars were perfect heavenly bodies, comprised of refined materials entirely different in nature from those of the earth. In addition to his studies of the moon, Galileo also observed sunspots, phenomena that Scheiner studied in great detail. The observations of both men proved that the sun was imperfect, suggesting that it may be made of some of the same basic elements that constitute the earth. Since the sun is a star, this made the stars valid subjects of physical investigation. For most scientists this tended to erase the old division between the celestial bodies and the earth. (Scheiner however favored a theory that the sunspots were perfect planets orbiting the sun. This theory preserved the earlier doctrine of a perfect sun).

BibrefsScheiner1630

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Wilkins, John. A discourse concerning a new world & another planet. London: Printed by Iohn Norton for Iohn Maynard, 1640.

Published only a few years after Galileo’s Dialogue of the Two World Systems, Wilkin’s work subtly acknowledges that the heliocentric system was not yet accepted by everyone. He was tentative in his statement that several scientists actually believed that the earth was one of the planets: “Now if our earth were one of the Planets (as it is according to them) then why may not another of the Planets be an earth?” Wilkins chose a celestial body closer to home to prove that life may exist beyond earth. He focused on the moon. He asserted its similarities to earth: the moon is solid, shines by reflected light, has dark and light spots indicating sea and land, and has mountains and valleys. Wilkins suggested that the moon was inhabited, and that it would be worthwhile to launch a spacecraft there to meet its residents.

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Descartes, Rene. Principia philosophia. Amstelodami: Apud Ludovicum & Danielem Elzevirios, 1656.

This image from Descartes’ master work shows the sun in the center, but the novel aspect of his system (first published in 1644) was that our sun was in fact not the center of anything except our own planetary system. The laws of motion of Descartes and of Newton were not limited to our solar system as were previous ideas of motive forces. Instead, they were universal laws, extending to all matter in the universe. Descartes referred in this work to the ancient atomist Lucretius, who once wrote: “Granted that empty space extends without limit in every direction and seeds [atoms] innumerable are rushing on countless courses through an unfathomable universe under the impulse of perpetual motion, it is in the highest degree unlikely that this earth and sky is the only one to have been created…In other regions there are other earths and various tribes of men and breeds of beasts.”

BibrefsDescartes1656

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Mallement, Claude. L'ouvrage de la creation. Paris : Chez la veuve Claude Thiboust et Pierre Esclassan, 1679.

Mallement was a professor of philosophy at the Collège du Plessis, where his students no doubt studied his version of the Cartesian system of vortices as presented in this charming illustration. It shows the sun circling around the central whirl rather than occupying the center of it. Only Mercury orbits the sun itself, while the center of the orbits of the other planets is the central whirl. Mallement had an interesting theory regarding comets in the Cartesian cosmos. He suggested that as they cycled through the vortices and into our solar system, comets could bring waste material from the edges of the vortex to the earth, introducing ill winds that may affect health. Although incorrect, Mallement’s physical explanation did suggest that comets were causes with effects rather than omens.

BibrefsMallement1679

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Fontenelle, M. de Bernard Le Bovier. Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes. Paris ; Lyon: Chez T. Amaulry, 1686.

Inspired by Descartes’ simple delineation of vortices, this imaginative image introducing Fontenelle’s text takes the diagram to a rich new level. The illustration shows great depth. The sun appears as the most distant point, and the planets are shown in perspective, with Mercury very far from the viewer, near the sun, while Jupiter and Saturn with their moons are nearer to the viewer. In the foreground, a profusion of stars are shown with their satellites. It is an extraordinarily detailed view of multiple solar systems. The text is a witty treatment of Descartes’ cosmology, but also includes a surprisingly thorough discussion of life on other planets.

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Fontenelle, M. de Bernard Le Bovier. Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes. Amsterdam: Chez Pierre Mortier.. 1701.

Fontenelle’s work was written in the form of an imaginary conversation between an astronomer and a young marquise. The noblewoman posed questions of her tutor about the universe, and his answers provided an introduction to astronomy that emphasized the Cartesian cosmos. While Descartes had presented the stars as suns in an unlimited plenum, Fontenelle went further: he gave the stars satellites with inhabitants. Fontenelle’s work became very popular, going through many editions. For this reason, Fontenelle’s conception of Descartes’ system became widely known. The frontispiece of this edition shows the astronomer and marquise in the garden, with the solar system and stars above.

BibrefsFontenelle1701

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Bonnycastle, John. An introduction to astronomy. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1787.

This plate shows our solar system amidst six others. Other systems are cut off by the symbol of the snake eating its tail, indicating that the view is a partial one, and perhaps that it extends beyond the frame infinitely into space. In the text, Bonnycastle credits the Englishman Francis Bacon (rather than the Florentine, Galileo) as finally disproving the ancient systems that denied a plurality of worlds. Until Bacon, he wrote, “Plato and Aristotle were referred to as the arbiters of every dispute, from whose authority there was no appeal.” The illustration of multiple worlds clearly contradicts a passage from Plato’s Timaeus: “…the Creator compounded the world out of all the fire and all the water and all the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them…outside; leaving no remnants out of which another such world might be created.”

BibrefsBonnycastle1787

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Maupertuis, Pierre. Discours sur les differentes figures des astres. Paris: Chez G. Martin, Jean-Baptiste Coignard, & les Freres Guerin, 1742.

Within the context of a plurality of worlds, Maupertuis discussed the gravitational affects of satellites on their stars. He suggested that the opaque bodies of planets orbiting around their stars could alter the appearance of stars. He also proposed that the rapid rotation of stars affects their shapes so that stars vary in form, as shown in the mezzotint. Maupertuis suggested that some stars had been flattened in the course of their rotation and as they turn we view them alternately as face-on and edge-on, and that this is the cause of the appearance of variable stars. Maupertuis is perhaps best known for his principle of least action. It determines the shape of an ellipse under the influence of gravity. He once wrote a mathematical treatise on the maxima and the minima. He must have had a penchant for extremes, as he also published works about the universe and the embryo.

BibrefsMaupertuis1742

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Euler, Leonhard. Theoria motuum planetarum et cometarum. Berlin: Sumtibus Ambrosii Haude, 1744.

This beautiful image of the plurality of worlds appears to be a version of the upper section of the Dopplemayr plate (also in this section), complete with angels unfurling the fabric of the universe. Euler’s prodigious researches in theoretical mechanics influenced his interpretation of Cartesian cosmology. Euler defined Descartes’ fluid plenum as a specific type of ether, and described its mechanical properties; he proposed that magnetism influenced its motion.

BibrefsEuler1744

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Doppelmayr, Johann. Atlas coelestis. Nuremberg: sumpt. Heredum Homannianorum, 1742.

The heavens are opened up to reveal the infinite universe of worlds in this glorious image. Multiple solar systems, symbolizing a portion of the universe extending beyond the frame, surround our own. Portraits of astronomers whose scientific investigations eventually led society to an understanding of this marvelous state of affairs are shown in the foreground. Ptolemy, representing knowledge of the ancient world, is at left. Next to him is Copernicus, who points to his sun-centered system, infinitely mirrored. At right are Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. While some ancient authors, including Lucretius, asserted multiple worlds, others, such as Plato and Aristotle, rejected them. Aristotle wrote: “A plurality of universes is in fact impossible if this world contains the entirety of matter, as in fact it does.” Beyond honoring Ptolemy, this illustration is a dramatic affirmation that in the Enlightenment period, the ancient world no longer ruled.

BibrefsDoppelmayer1742

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Barin, Théodore. Le monde naissant. Utrecht: Pour la Compagnie des Libraires, 1686.

In presenting his cosmology, Descartes made explicit references to the biblical creation narrative in his Principles of Philosophy. He described the waters above the firmament as the vortices of other stars, and the waters below the firmament as the sun’s fluid planetary heavens. This was a welcome passage to those readers who wished to ground themselves within a familiar framework while interpreting the novel universal theory of Descartes. Barin was thus able to present this image of the stars and planets cycling in their vortices as a representation of the fourth day of creation in Genesis.

BibrefsBarin1686

Section 8: Measuring the Distance to the Stars

The mathematical principles of the Copernican model resulted in pushing the sphere of the stars many thousands of times further away from the sun than it had been in the earth-centered cosmos. When the sun-centered system gained acceptance in the seventeenth century, astronomers seized the telescope to directly test the numbers. The quest for stellar parallax - a method for measuring distance to the stars-- began in earnest with Robert Hooke in 1669. He set his sites on Gamma Draconis, the bright star in the head of the constellation Draco, the Dragon, but his result was uncertain. In 1838, Friedrich Bessel solved the problem of measuring stellar distance by focusing on Cygnus 61, a small star in the constellation Cygnus, the celestial Swan. Using a precision instrument called a heliometer, he calculated it Alexander Keith Johnston. Atlas of astronomy, 1855 (detail). to be over 60 trillion miles away.

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Section 8: Measuring the Distance to the Stars

Flamsteed, John. Atlas céleste. Paris, Chez F.G. Deschamps [et chez] l'auteur, 1776.

“Whether the Earth move or stand still hath been a Problem, that since Copernicus revived it, hath much exercised the Wits of our best modern Astronomers,” wrote Robert Hooke in 1669. He then declared his intention to use stellar parallax to prove that the earth does move. He selected Gamma Draconis, the star that appeared near the zenith of Gresham College, where he resided. He cut a hole in the roof of his apartment, another through the ceiling of the second floor, and made his observations lying on a sofa from the first. He published his result as 15” of arc, but his claim was not widely accepted. James Bradley and John Flamsteed (whose accurate star observations inspired this atlas) also attempted the parallax of the Dragon Star, but like Hooke, they were foiled by the aberration of light. Bradley discovered that phenomenon during his observations of the star (on the head of the Dragon constellation near Hercules).

BibrefsFlamsteed1776

Section 8: Measuring the Distance to the Stars

Horrebow, Peder. Basis astronomiae; sive, Astronomiae pars mechanica. Havniae : Apud viduam beati Hieron. Christiani Paulli, 1735.

Horrebow was a devoted student of Olaus Roemer (1644-1710). This work by Horrebow includes an important paper that he had found among his teacher’s manuscripts, entitled The Moveable Earth, or the Parallax of the Annual Orbit from Observations of Sirius and Lyra, Carried out at Copenhagen in the Years 1692 and 1693. Roemer’s goal in his search for stellar parallax, as noted in the title, was to prove that the earth “moved” (orbited the sun). This fascinating engraving illustrates the transit instrument that Roemer invented and used in his home observatory in Copenhagen. The instrument is the horizontal pipe on which the attached telescope moved freely along the meridian (vertically). Two cones, joined at their bases and hiding the tube of the telescope, reduced any slight warping. A small lantern is mounted to illuminate the mirror. At the right end of the pipe, a microscope is attached. Parallel threads divided the focus of both the telescope and the microscope, and the clocks timed the positions of the stars. Roemer worried that his clocks were responding to temperature changes (later confirmed), and for that reason he did not publish his manuscript.

BibrefsHorrebow1735

Section 8: Measuring the Distance to the Stars

Jamieson, Alexander. A celestial atlas. London : Published by G. & W.B. Whittaker..., T. Cadell..., and N. Hailes..., 1822.

In 1837 Friedrich Struve published a parallax of Vega, in the upper right of the constellation Lyra on this plate, but he presented his results as uncertain. Finally, in 1838 Friedrich Bessel successfully detected the parallax of a star. Cygnus 61, the object of Bessel’s work, is too small for a designation in this atlas, appearing on the right wing of the swan in the constellation Cygnus. Bessel had meticulously recorded sixteen observations of the star every night for a year, followed by a complicated program of mathematical analysis to cancel out motions not relevant to his task. The parallax he measured was 0.3”, an incredibly small angle to measure. From this he calculated the star to be 60 trillion miles from earth. Ptolemy had estimated the sphere of the fixed stars to be about 60 million miles from earth. Bessel, clearly “thinking outside the sphere,” expanded Ptolemy’s universe by a million times.

BibrefsJamieson1822

Section 8: Measuring the Distance to the Stars

Arago, Francois. Popular astronomy. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855. v. 1 .

It takes a full year to accumulate the measurements required to determine the parallax of a star. The position of the star is recorded regularly as the earth makes a complete orbit around the sun. The distance of the stars from earth is so great that the earth’s orbit does not provide a baseline large enough to easily perceive a change in the position of any star. Detecting stellar parallax was a major challenge for astronomers until one instrument finally caught up to the task: a Fraunhofer heliometer, shown in this illustration. Heliometers have a divided lens that allows the viewer to see two magnified images at once. When Joseph von Fraunhofer applied an achromatic lens (refracting light without color distortion) to a heliometer of his design, the world finally had an instrument that provided the precision required to detect parallax in the hands of the talented astronomer Friedrich Bessel.

BibrefsArago1855

Section 8: Measuring the Distance to the Stars

Meissner, August Gottlieb. Astronomischer Hand-Atlas zu Rüdigers Kenntniss des Himmels. Leipzig : bey Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius, 1805.

The brightest star in the Centaur constellation, Alpha Centauri (in the left hoof) was the object of an effort to detect parallax by Thomas Henderson. He was successful and his work preceded that of Bessel, but he initially was not confident of his results and did not publish them until 1839. Henderson and Friedrich Struve (whose observations also proved to be accurate) were praised for their work at the ceremony honoring Friedrich Bessel’s achievement. John Herschel, the son of William Herschel, presided over the ceremony, bestowing upon Bessel the Royal Society’s Gold Medal. John Herschel commended all three men as “among the fairest flowers of civilization” for passing a “great and hitherto impassable barrier to our excursions into the sidereal *starry+ universe.” He declared that their work resulted in “the greatest and most glorious triumph which practical astronomy has ever witnessed.”

BibrefsMeissner1805

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Section 9: Works depicting the “plurality of worlds” described From Solar Systems to Star Systems multiple solar systems, including ours, scattered indefinitely in space. Solar systems were not thought of as being organized into a star system, or galaxy, until the eighteenth century.

Thomas Wright realized that the intense collection of stars along the Milky Way was an indication that our sun and the other stars are part of a star system with a particular structure. In 1750 he described the sun as orbiting a central point, and suggested that it did so along with the other stars. He suggested two shapes that the star system could take that would account for the appearance of the stars in the Milky Way: a ring of stars that he compared to the plane of the planets or a hollow sphere. Immanuel Kant recognized that Newton's physical laws corresponded to Wright's ring (not to his sphere), and in 1755 Kant developed an evolutionary cosmology that

Thomas Wright. An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe, 1750. compared the formation of the solar system to that of the galaxies by the same natural laws.

Table of Contents

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory…of the Universe…solving…the general phaenomena of the visible creation and particularly the Via Lactea. London: Printed for the author, 1750.

The illustration shows a perspective view of a section of the Milky Way. Wright suggested that if a viewer is near the center at A, the stars would appear diffuse toward either B or C, and crowded if looking toward F, G, or D. To Wright, the Milky Way was a vital clue that our sun and the other stars are arranged in a stellar system.

BibrefsWright1750

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory… 1750.

Novel diagram of sun orbiting a central point: Wright sought a cause to explain why the stars would be arranged in a particular pattern. The cause of the arrangement of our planetary system is that the planets orbit a central point (the sun). Wright proposed that the sun and the other stars also orbit a central point.

BibrefsWrightStarsOrbit

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory… 1750.

Ring-shaped galaxy: Wright reasoned that the star system may therefore take the same shape as our solar system, or the ring of Saturn. He provided double or multiple ring options. He proposed that the center of the star system was terrestrial in nature; some of his illustrations show it with land and sea (today we know that the centers of galaxies are not solid bodies but black holes).

BibrefsWrightRing

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory… 1750.

Spherical galaxy: The second shape that Wright suggested for the galaxy was a hollow sphere. The view from within the shell of stars would approximate the perspective view of the Milky Way, as would the view from within the ring shape.

BibrefsWrightSphere

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory… 1750.

Cross section of spherical galaxy: Had Wright used his suggested central terrestrial body in this image it would have appeared very much like the Aristotelian universal system. Instead he shows his proposed philosophical center (where today we would place a black hole). In the ancient system, the earth was at the center. In Wright’s galaxy, our solar system is located (though not visible here) within the outer sphere of stars.

BibrefsWrightCross

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Bode, Johann Elert. .Allgemeine Betrachtungen über das Weltgebäude. Berlin: [s.n.], 1812.

Bode, best known for his spectacular star atlas published a decade earlier, illustrates the position of the Milky Way in both hemispheres, and the location of stars along its length. The plate is used here to demonstrate that the Milky Way appears to us as a white brushstroke in the sky as shown. Before the work of Thomas Wright, it was perceived as completely separate from our solar system but in fact our sun is a part of the Milky Way. It only appears to be separate because the perspective view offered by our sun’s location within the galaxy makes it appear to be a distant unrelated ribbon.

BibrefsBode1812

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Hevelius, Johannes. Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia. Gedani: typis J.-Z. Stollii, 1690.

Edmond Halley sailed to St. Helena, an isolated tropical island in the middle of the Atlantic, to record the positions of over 300 stars in the southern hemisphere. The resulting catalog published in 1679 gained more attention after Hevelius included Halley’s stars in this beautiful atlas. In 1718, Halley published an article in the Philosophical Transactions noting that three of the stars (including Arcturus in Bootes) had changed position since Ptolemy recorded them in ancient times. Halley proposed that stars are not fixed in their positions, but have their own proper motion. Thomas Wright quoted nearly the entire brief article in his Original Theory in order to prepare his readers for his proposal that our sun orbits a central point. “If they move,” he wrote, “the Sun must also.”

BibrefsHevelius1690

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Kant, Immanuel. Allgemeine geschichte und theorie des himmels. Zeitz : Bei Wilhelm Webel, 1798.

Kant’s Universal natural history and theory of the heavens, first published in 1755, was an influential work of cosmology. It presented a comprehensive and detailed theory describing how the celestial bodies were formed, the physical laws that govern them, and how they may be transformed in the future. Kant credited Thomas Wright for providing some ideas for his cosmology, but the role of gravity was not one of them. Wright seemed unaware of the limitations that gravity would place on the shapes of galaxies, believing for example that stars in his spherical galaxy could orbit around the center in different directions. Kant recognized that Wright’s ring-shaped galaxy, and not his sphere, followed the universal laws of gravitation. He agreed with Wright that the galaxy may take the same form as the solar system, but he understood why: it was formed according to the same laws.

BibrefsKant1798

Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems

Flammarion, Camille. L'atmosphère météorologie populaire. Paris : Librairie Hachette et cie., 1888.

An artist depicts a medieval missionary who has found the point where the sky and the earth meet. With his head poking through the stars, he perfectly embodies our exhibit theme, “thinking outside the sphere.” The charming and irresistibly captivating wood engraving (in this work on earth’s atmospheric layers) is by an anonymous artist. It shows the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement and is inspired by fifteenth century illustrations of the biblical narrative of Ezekiel’s vision. The image is a striking metaphor for those aspects of astronomy that always lie just beyond our grasp. The pilgrim pushes the envelope of the unknown. The stellar sphere first bounded the geocentric universe, then the heliocentric one. As our view of the stars expanded, the sphere of the stars was proposed as a shape for our star system. What lies beyond?

BibrefsFlammarion1888

Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy

If the stars were part of a star system, how could it be Section 10: measured and its boundaries defined? William Herschel The First Map of the Galaxy used a handmade, twenty-foot telescope to chip away at what he called the "construction of the heavens." He swept the skies to record the arrangement of the visible stars, and in 1785 published our first map of the galaxy. It placed the sun quite centrally within it, in what seemed a philosophical return to the earth-centered system that featured "us."

Alexander Keith Johnston. Atlas of astronomy, 1855 (detail). Another of Herschel's great contributions was to establish that our solar system is moving through space. Wright and Kant had assumed its motion, but Herschel proved it through rigorous analysis of telescopic observations. He determined that the sun was moving toward the constellation Hercules. Along with our sun, we were on our way somewhere, moving vast distances

through galactic space. Table of Contents

Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy

Bode, Johann Elert. Vorstellung der Gestirne auf XXXIV Kupfertafeln nach der Pariser Ausgabe des Flamsteadschen Himmelsatlas. Berlin und Stralsand: Bey Gottlieb August Lange, 1782 .

The bright star Arcturus is found in the knee of the constellation Bootes in this atlas. It was one of three stars (with Aldebaran and Sirius) that had been discovered by Edmond Halley in 1718 to have changed positions in the sky. In 1775, Tobias Mayer confirmed its motion and added two dozen more stars that exhibited proper motion. Mayer wrote that “it is not enough to know that certain stars are endowed with their own proper motion, but we must also ascertain precisely which are the stars, in what region of the sky they move, and with what speed” if astronomers are to make accurate catalogs.

BibrefsBode1782

Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy

Herschel, William. “On the Proper Motion of the Sun and Solar System” Philosophical Transactions 73:247-283 (January 1, 1783).

Herschel found that the determination of proper motion posed a tantalizing question about our sun: if it moves, where is it going? In explaining his approach, he begins by stating that the theory of attraction dictates that if several stars move, they all must move, including our sun. He then presented the problem of how to discriminate the sun’s motion from all of the other proper motions that the stars display. Herschel impressively succeeded in the analytical feat of cancelling out the individual stars’ proper motions in order to isolate the sun’s motion. He determined that the sun was indeed moving through space, and that it was moving toward the constellation Hercules, as shown in the diagram.

BibrefsHerschel1783

Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy

Herschel, William. “On the construction of the heavens” Philosophical Transactions 75:213-266. (January 1, 1785).

When Charles Messier published a catalog of nebula that he had observed using a small instrument, Herschel knew he could discover more with his 20 foot handmade telescope. In 1783 with the assistance of his sister Carolyn, he began making what he called “sweeps” of specific areas of the sky each night, finding many more of these objects. Soon Herschel realized that he could build a composite view of all of the stars, thus arriving at a general idea of the shape of the universe. He outlined his technique for this new goal. “I call it Gaging the Heavens, or the Star-Gage.” In January of 1785, Herschel published the results of his survey: our first map of the galaxy, with our sun near the center. It appeared to Herschel that our galaxy branched in two for a portion of its length. Although Herschel soon determined his map to be flawed, it was the best we had until the twentieth century.

BibrefsHerschel1785

Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy

Johnston, Alexander Keith. Atlas of astronomy. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1855.

Johnston’s atlas shows Herschel’s map of the galaxy in the top right, and a binary star system at left. Herschel had assumed that the stars were generally of equal brightness. This would indicate that stars that appeared faint were further away while the bright stars were closer to us. He used double stars to help gauge distance, comparing a faint one next to a bright one. His own studies of double stars later proved that many orbited around each other, disproving the “faint equals far” rule and calling into question the accuracy of his galaxy map.

BibrefsJohnston1855

Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy

Mitchel, Ormsby M. The planetary and stellar worlds. London: T. Nelson and Sons...,1861 .

This image illustrates Herschel’s map, surrounded by two star clusters and two sets of double stars. Herschel became interested in seeking to delineate the shape of the galaxy while searching for star clusters and nebulae. Herschel assumed that his telescope could reach to the edge of the universe, so he considered that his resulting map traced the entire cosmos. By 1818, as improvements to his telescopes simply continued to bring more and more distant stars into view, Herschel became convinced that his map represented only a limited view of the universe, which he decided was “fathomless.”

BibrefsMitchel1861

Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy

Smyth, William Henry. A cycle of celestial objects. London: J. W. Parker, 1844.

Not having any proof to the contrary, Herschel assumed that our sun was quite central in the galaxy. Philosophically, this was a return to the Copernican cosmos, in which the stars were distributed around the sun in equal measure, making our solar system the focus of the universe. Herschel restored our sun’s special place, plucking it out of the infinite plurality of worlds that had no center. As a coda beyond the span of this exhibit, it is interesting to note that in 1918 it was discovered that our sun was not near the center of the galaxy but further out in its spiral. Our sun lost its unique status, but we learned in 1925 that as it heads toward Hercules as Herschel had discovered, it also joins the other stars in a fascinating journey all the way around the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, much as Thomas Wright and Immanuel Kant had imagined.

BibrefsSmyth1844

Coda: Multiple Galaxies Confirmed

In 1918, observations proved that the sun was not centrally located in the galaxy, but further toward the system's rim. Our sun lost its special place, but in 1925 we gained a new understanding of its motion. It was discovered that together with the other stars, our sun moves in a general motion around the center of the galaxy, much as Wright, and especially Kant, had imagined. In that same year, another suggestion of those eighteenth-century authors was proven: multiple galaxies exist beyond our own.

BibrefsCoda Table of Contents

Thomas Wright. An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe, 1750.

Bibliography of Works Exhibited Brahe, Tycho. Learned: Tico Brahæ, his astronomicall coniectur of the new and much admired [star]. London: by B[ernard] A[lsop] and T[homas F[awcet] for Michaell [Sparks] and Samuell Nealand, 1632. Apian, Peter. Cosmographia. Antwerp: Bontio, 1550. Bruno, Giordano. De triplici minimo et mensura… Frankfurt: Apud Ioannem Wechelum & Petrum Arago, Francois. Fischerum , 1591. Popular astronomy. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855. v. 1 . Cellarius, Andreas. Harmonia macrocosmica, sev Atlas universalis et nouus. Amsterdam: apud Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Joannem Janssonium, 1661 Aristotelis Stagiritae De coelo… Cum Averrois ... variis in eosdem commentariis. Venice: Iuntas, 1550. Clavius, Christoph. In sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco commentaries. Rome: Helianum, 1570. Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Opera. Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1495. Clavius, Christoph. Operum mathematicorum . Mainz: sumptibus Antonii Hierat; Excudebat Barin, Théodore. Reinhardus Eltz, 1611. Le monde naissant. Utrecht: Pour la Compagnie des Libraires, 1686. Descartes, Rene. Beati, Gabriele. Principia philosophia. Amsterdam: Apud Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1644 Sphaera triplex … Rome: Typis Varesij, 1662. Descartes, Rene. Blaue, Johannes. Principia philosophia. Amstelodami: Apud Ludovicum & Danielem Elzevirios, Atlas maior, siue, Cosmographia Blauiana. v.1. Amsterdam: Labore & 1656. sumptibus Ioannis Blaeu, 1662. Digges, Leonard. Bode, Johann Elert. A prognostication everlastinge of right good effect, with additions by his sonne Allgemeine Betrachtungen über das Weltgebäude. Berlin: [s.n.], 1812. Thomas. London: by the widow Orwin, 1596.

Bode, Johann Elert. Doppelmayr, Johann. Vorstellung der Gestirne auf XXXIV Kupfertafeln nach der Pariser Ausgabe des Atlas coelestis. Nuremberg: sumpt. Heredum Homannianorum, 1742. Flamsteadschen Himmelsatlas. Berlin und Stralsand: Bey Gottlieb August Lange, 1782 . Euler, Leonhard. Theoria motuum planetarum et cometarum. Berlin: Sumtibus Ambrosii Haude, Bonnycastle, John. 1744. An introduction to astronomy. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1787.

Fine, Oronce. De mundi sphaera. Paris: Colinaei, 1542. Herschel, William. “On the Proper Motion of the Sun and Solar System” Philosophical Transactions Flammarion, Camille. 73:247-283 (January 1, 1783). L'atmosphère météorologie populaire. Paris : Librairie Hachette et cie., 1888. Herschel, William. Flamsteed, John. “On the Construction of the Heavens”Philosophical Transactions 75:213-266. Atlas céleste. Paris, Chez F.G. Deschamps [et chez] l'auteur, 1776. (January 1, 1785).

Fludd, Robert. Hevelius, Johannes. Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia. Gedani: typis J.-Z. Stollii, 1690. historia. Oppenheim: Aere Johan-Theodori de Bry ; typis Hieronymi Galleri, 1617. Horrebow, Peder. Basis astronomiae; sive, Astronomiae pars mechanica. Havniae : Apud viduam Fontenelle, M. de Bernard Le Bovier. beati Hieron. Christiani Paulli, 1735. Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes. Paris ; Lyon: Chez T. Amaulry, 1686. Huygens, Christiaan. Fontenelle, M. de Bernard Le Bovier. The Celestial Worlds Discover'd. London: Printed for Timothy Childe, 1698. Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes. Amsterdam: Chez Pierre Mortier.. 1701. Huygens, Christaan. Gallucci, Giovanni Paolo. Cosmotheoros, eller Werlds Beskådare. Upsala : Tryckt på egen bekostnad af Theatrum mundi, et temporis. Venice: Apud Ioannem Baptistam Somascum, Johan Edman, Kongl. Acad. Boltryctare, 1774. 1588. Huygens, Christaan. Gassendi, Pierre. Opera varia. Lugduni Batavorum : Apud Janssonios Vander Aa, 1724. Vol. 1. Institutio astronomica. London: Typis Jacobi Flesher; Prostant apud (portrait) Gulielmum Morden, 1653. Hyginus Gilbert, William. De mundi et sphere. Venice: Sessa, 1512. De magnete. Londini :Excudebat Petrus Short, 1600. Jamieson, Alexander. Gilbert, William. A celestial atlas. London : Published by G. & W.B. Whittaker..., T. Cadell..., and N. De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova. Amsterdam: apud L. Elzevirium Hailes..., 1822. 1651. Johnston, Alexander Keith. Guericke, Otto von. Atlas of astronomy. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) magdeburgica de vacuo spatio primum. 1855. Amsterdam: apud Joannem Janssonium a Waesberge, 1672.

Kant, Immanuel. Mitchel, Ormsby M. Allgemeine geschichte und theorie des himmels. Zeitz : Bei Wilhelm Webel, The planetary and stellar worlds. London: T. Nelson and Sons...,1861 . 1798. Newton, Isaac. Kepler, Johann. The mathematical principles of natural philosophy. Astronomia nova. [Heidelberg : G. Voegelinus], 1609. London: Printed for Benjamin Motte, 1729 (both vols.).

Kepler, Johannes. Pemberton , Henry. De cometis libelli tres. Augsburg: Typis Andreae Apergeri, 1619. A view of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy. Printed by S. Palmer, 1728. Kepler, Johannes. De stella nova in pede Serpentarii. Prague: Typis Pauli Sessii; impensis authoris Peurbach, Georg von. 1606. Theoricae novae planetarum. Basel: Henric petrina, 1573. Kircher, Athanasius. Iter extaticum coeleste . Würzburg: sumptibus Joh. And. & Wolffg. Jun. Plato (427-347 BCE). Endterorum haeredibus, prostat Norimbergae apud eosdem, 1660. Timaeus. Paris: Badius Ascencius, 1520.

Lipstorp, Daniel. Ptolemy (100-170 CE). Specimina philosophiae Cartesianae. Quibus accredit ijusdem authoris Almagestum. Venice: Petrus Liechtenstein, 1515. Copernicus redivivus. Leiden: apud Johannem & Danielem Elsevier. 1653. Regiomontanus (1436-1476). Epytoma in Almagestu Ptolemei. Mallement, Claude. Venice: Landoia, 1496. L'ouvrage de la creation. Paris : Chez la veuve Claude Thiboust et Pierre Esclassan, 1679. Sacrobosco, Johannes. De sphaera. Venice: Ratdolt, 1482. Maupertuis, Pierre. Discours sur les differentes figures des astres. Paris: Chez G. Martin, Jean- Sacrobosco, Johannes. Baptiste Coignard, & les Freres Guerin, 1742. Sphaera mundi. Venice: Scoti, 1490.

Meissner, August Gottlieb. Scheiner, Christoph. Astronomischer Hand-Atlas zu Rüdigers Kenntniss des Himmels. Leipzig : bey Disquisitiones mathematicae de controversiis et novitatibus astronomicis. Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius, 1805. Ingolstadt: Ex typographeo Ederiano apud Elisabetham Angermariam, 1614.

Mesmes, Jean Pierre de. Scheiner, Christoph. Les institutions astronomiques. Paris: De l'imprimerie de Michel de Vascosan, Rosa Ursina siue Sol. Bracciani: Apud Andream Phaeum Typographum 1557. Ducalem, 1630.

Scheuchzer, Johann. Thinking Outside the Sphere Phisica sacra. Augsburg: [s.n.], 1734. Bibliographical References from Secondary Sources, with Notes and Quotations

Schreckenfuchs, Erasmus Oswald. Authors/dates of the rare works exhibited are in bold, followed by the secondary Commentaria, in Nouas theoricas planetarum Georgii Purbachii. Basel: Petri, sources, notes, and quotations relating to the exhibit catalog text. 1556. Section 1: The Ancient Universe Seller, John. Atlas coelestis. London: Sold by Ier: Seller & Cha: Price at [the] Hermitage & Plato 1520 Back to catalog entry Plato1520 Phil: Lea at [the] Atlas & Hercules in Cheapside, 1700. The starry sphere controlled the motion of the planets: Plato. Timaeus. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. The Dialogues of Plato. New York: Smyth, William Henry. Random House, 1937. 2 vols. (Jowett 2: 17-18). Plato wrote that the Creator A cycle of celestial objects. London: J. W. Parker, 1844. “gave dominion to the motion of the same.” While Plato proposes in Timaeus that

the “circle of the same” formed the sphere of the stars, the “circle of the diverse” Wilkins, John. was divided into the circles or orbits of the planets; he does not describe the A discourse concerning a new world & another planet. London: Printed by Iohn Norton for Iohn Maynard, 1640. planets as affixed to spheres.

Wing, Vincent. Myth of Er: Plato. Republic, Book X. (Jowett 1: 874). In contrast to the sphere of Harmonicon coeleste : or, The coelestiall harmony of the visible world. London: stars described in Plato’s rational cosmological work Timaeus, his fanciful tale of Er Printed by Robert Leybourn, for the Company of Stationers, 1651. describes the stars as forming a hemisphere. Inside it, each planet was attached to its own hemisphere, each inside the other, likened in the tale to a set of vessels. Wright, Thomas. Plato in this imaginary work thus introduced a nested model of the universe. Clavis coelestis. London: Printed for the Author; and sold by E. Cave [et al], Aristotle established a nested spheres model (see entry for Aristotle 1495 work 1742. below), presenting a stellar sphere as in Plato’s Timaeus, but asserting that the planets resided in spheres within it. Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory…of the Universe…solving…the general phaenomena of the Relevant quotations: visible creation and particularly the Via Lactea. London: Printed for the author, Plato on the spherical form of the universe and circular motion 1750. The Creator… “made the world in the form of a globe… having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most Zahn, Johann. perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for he considered that Specula physico-mathematico-historica notabilium ac mirabilium sciendorum. the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike... and he made the Nuremberg: sumptibus Joannis Christophori Lochner, 1696. universe a circle moving in a circle.” Timaeus (Jowett 2: 16).

Plato on the creation of the sphere of the stars The Creator compounded all of the elements and then divided the mixture “lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the

centre like the letter X, and bent them into circular form,” bodies that are moved is evident…; for each of the planets has more connecting the ends together to form an inner circle and an outer than one movement.” (Metaphysics 12.8.1073b,7-10). circle. The outer circle, which had dominion over the motion of the inner one, formed the sphere of the stars. The inner circle “he Aristotle assigned the number of spheres required for the planets, divided in six places and made seven unequal circles having their establishing the foundation on which Ptolemy would build his intervals in ratios of two and three…; and three *the Sun, Mercury, sophisticated system. Aristotle first mentioned the system of and Venus] he made to move with equal swiftness, and the Eudoxus and the contributions of others. He then wrote: “But it is remaining four [the Moon, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter] to move with necessary, if all the spheres combined are to explain the observed unequal swiftness.” Timaeus (Jowett 2: 17-18). facts, that for each of the planets there should be other spheres… which counteract those already mentioned and bring back to the Plato on the stars The Creator fashioned the stars “out of fire, that same position the outermost sphere of the stars… for only thus can they might be the brightest of all things and fairest to behold, and all the forces at work produce the observed motion of the planets. he fashioned them after the likeness of the universe in the figure Since the spheres involved in the movement of the planets of a circle… distributing them over the whole circumference of themselves are eight for Saturn and Jupiter and twenty-five for the heaven, which was to be a true cosmos or glorious world spangled others” and additional spheres are required to counteract various with them all over.” Timaeus (Jowett 2: 21). motions, “therefore the number of all the spheres, both those which move the planets and those which counteract these, will be fifty-five. And if one were not to add [the spheres of Callippus], the whole set Aristotle 1495 Back to catalog entry Aristotle1495 of spheres will be forty-seven in number.” (Metaphysics The nested spheres model; the necessity of the spherical shape of the universe: 12.8.1074a,1-14). Aristotle wrote: “The shape of the heaven is of necessity spherical…Now the first figure [the sphere] belongs to the first body, and the first body is that at the farthest circumference *the sphere of the stars+… The same then will be true of Opening page of Aristotle’s On the Heavens: Cahill, Hugh. "Every Person the body continuous with it: for that which is continuous with the spherical is Naturally Seeks to Know” Rare Books Collection, Kings College, London, an online spherical. The same again holds of the bodies between these and the centre [the exhibition of books on ancient Greek science and medicine from the Foyle Special earth]. Bodies which are bounded by the spherical and in contact with it must be, Collections Library. August 25, 2005. Web. 2009. as wholes, spherical; and the bodies below the sphere of the planets are http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/library/speccoll/exhibitions/gsci/ast.html contiguous with the sphere above them. The sphere then will be spherical throughout; for every body within it is contiguous and continuous with spheres.” Aristotle. “On the Heavens.” Trans. W. D. Ross. Great Books of the Western World. Aristotle 1550 Back to catalog entry Aristotle1550 Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Wm. Benton, Encyclopedia Britannica, The motion of the sphere of stars… God as final cause: 1952. (On the Heavens 2.4.286b,10-287a,10). Aristotle. “Metaphysics” Trans. W. D. Ross. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Wm. Benton, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. Relevant quotations: (Metaphysics 12.7.1072b,9). Aristotle wrote: “...motion in a circle is the first Aristotle accounted for the appearance of the orbits of the planets kind of spatial motion, and this the first mover produces.” from earth, including retrograde motion, by providing more spheres than planets: “That the movements are more numerous than the Heavenly source of rotation of the sphere of stars was associated with its shape: Aristotle. “On the Heavens.” Trans. W. D. Ross. Great Books of the Western World.

Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, 1952: circular motions.” “The perfect is naturally prior to the imperfect, and the circle is a perfect thing…” (On the Heavens 1.2.269a,20) Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe: the Cosmological Distance Ladder. “The activity of God is immortality, i.e. eternal life. Therefore the movement of Chichester, UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. 34-35. In his Planetary Hypothesis (not that which is divine must be eternal. But such is the heaven, viz. a divine body, the Almagest), Ptolemy provided the first scientific estimate of the distance from and for that reason to it is given the circular body whose nature it is to move earth to the sphere of the fixed stars, interpreted by Webb as about 60 million always in a circle...” (On the Heavens 2.3.286a,10); miles. “Let us consider generally which shape is primary among planes and solids alike… The sphere is among solids what the circle is among plane figures… Alone among Van Helden, Albert. Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimensions from Aristarchus solids [geometers] leave the sphere undivided, as not possessing more than one to Halley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. 15, 20-24. Includes an surface …the sphere is first of solid figures… It follows that the body which excellent comparison of the general order of the planets given in the Almagest revolves with a circular movement must be spherical.” (On the Heavens and the defined nested orbits of the planets described in the Planetary 2.4.286b,12-287a,5). Hypothesis.

Relevant quotation Aristotle on the role of the sphere of the fixed stars in the On Regiomontanus and Peurbach: nested spheres model: O'Connor, J. J. and E. F. Robertson. Georg Peurbach. School of Mathematics and “In thinking of the life and moving principal of the several Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. August 2006. Web. 2009. heavens one must regard the first [outermost sphere] as far http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Peurbach.html superior to the others. Such a superiority would be reasonable. Provides biographies of Peurbach and Regiomontanus and describes the joint For this single first motion has to move many of the divine project of preparing the exhibited work of Ptolemy’s Almagest. bodies [planets], while the numerous other motions move only one each since each planet moves with a variety of motions.” (On the Heavens 2.12.292b,30). Ptolemy 1515 Back to catalog entry Ptolemy1515 Ptolemy diverged from Aristotle’s ideal system…the earth was not the precise

center:

Gingerich, Owen. The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler. New York: Regiomontanus 1496 Back to catalog entry Regiomontanus1496 American Institute of Physics, 1993. 8-9; 139-145. Ptolemy revolutionized astronomy: Gingerich, Owen. The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler. New York: Ptolemy’ star catalog printed for the first time in this edition of Almagest: American Institute of Physics, 1993. 7-8. Gingerich notes that with his Almagest, Ashworth, William B. “Out of This World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas” “Ptolemy’s goal is nothing less than the calculation of planetary positions at any Linda Hall Library. 2007. Web. 2009. time—past, present, or future.” http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/stars/pto.htm Ptolemy 1515 is the second entry in this online exhibit. Toomer, G. J., transl. Ptolemy’s Almagest. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984. 37-40; 321-327; 419-420. Ptolemy generally reiterates the traditional (Aristotelian) sphere of the stars. He then introduces his system for the planets, giving assurance “that all their apparent anomalies can be represented by uniform

Section 2: The Enduring Earth-Centered System http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Peurbach.html

Peurbach 1573 Back to catalog entry Peurbach1573 On the epicycle “immersed in the depth” of its orb, etc.: nd On Apollonius of Perga and Hipparchus: Aiton, E. J. “Peurbach’s Theoricae novae planetarum.” Osiris 2 series. 3 (1987): [Note: Ptolemy inherited seeds of the ideas of the epicycle/deferent and of orbits 12, 15. not centered on earth from these ancient astronomers.] Gingerich, Owen. The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler. New York: American Institute of Physics, 1993. 7-8. Sacro Bosco 1482 Back to catalog entry Sacrobosco1482 Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe: the Cosmological Distance Ladder. On this Ratdolt edition of Sacro Bosco: Chichester, UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. 34-35. Gingerich, Owen. “Sacrobosco Illustrated.” Between Demonstration and Imagination: Essays in the History of Science and Philosophy Presented to John D. On Ptolemy’s astronomical system: North. Ed. Lodi Nauta and Arjo Banderjagt. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 1999. 211. Toomer, G. J., transl. Ptolemy’s Almagest. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984. 420. Toomer notes that “In his Planetary Hypothesis [see below] Ptolemy proposes a Schreckenfuchs 1556 system in which the spheres of the planets are contiguous.” General info/no refs

Goldstein, Bernard R. “The Arabic version of Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypothesis.” Sacro Bosco 1490 Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 2nd ser. 57. 4 (1967): 3-12. General info/no refs Book I, part 2 of Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypothesis includes his estimate of the distance to the sphere of stars, and establishes absolute distances for the planets Hyginus 1512 Back to catalog entry Hyginus1512 that leave no space between their nested orbits, for example: “The distances of This work was usually called the Poeticon Astronomicon: the three remaining planets may be determined without difficulty from the Ashworth, William B. “Out of This World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas” nesting of the spheres, where the least distance of a sphere is considered equal to Linda Hall Library. 2007. Web. 2009. the greatest distance of the sphere below it.” http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/stars/hygb.htm Note: While Ptolemy retained Aristotle’s sphere of stars, scholars do not interpret Hyginus 1512 is the fourth entry in this online exhibit. Ptolemy’s planetary spheres as complete spheres; Ptolemy refers to “sawn portions” of spheres, or “tambourines.” *Peter Barker. Personal interview. 2009]. Fine, Oronce 1542 Back to catalog entry Fine1542 Barker, Peter. “Copernicus and the Critics of Ptolemy.” Journal for the History of Among the works he edited were Peurbach’s: Astronomy, (Nov.1999): 343-344. Web. 2009. Regarding the nature of Ptolemy’s Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York: spheres in the Planetary Hypothesis, Barker describes nested concentric shells Columbia University Press, 1941. 8 vols. (Thorndike V: The Sixteenth Century) “rotating about axes that were diameters” and notes that the shells were later 284-291. called orbs.

Among the works he edited were… Apian’s: Peurbach emphasized the solid nature of the spheres: Short, John R. Making Space: Revisioning the World 1475-1600. Syracuse O'Connor, J. J. and E. F. Robertson. Georg Peurbach. School of Mathematics and University Press, 2004. 42-44. Web (Google Books, accessed 2009). Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. August 2006. Web. 2009.

Fine had published a book about…an equatorium: Scheiner 1614 Back to catalog entry Scheiner1614 O’Connor, J. J. and E.F. Robertson. Oronce Fine. School of Mathematics and On Scheiner’s image showing why the earth cannot rotate: Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland.September 2005. Web. 2009. Ashworth, William B. “Iconography of a new physics.” History and Technology 4.2 http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Fine.html (1987): 271-272.

Gassendi 1653 Back to catalog entry Gassendi1653 Apian 1550 On Gassendi and the sun-centered system: General info/no refs Hagen, John. "Pierre Gassendi." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. Web. 2009. Fludd 1617 Back to catalog entry Fludd1617 . On the angelic orders: Godwin, Joscelyn. Robert Fludd: Hermetic philosopher and surveyor of two worlds. Gassendi on atomism, magnetism, and moving particles: London: Thames and Hudson, 1979. 21, 22. Donahue, William. The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres 1595-1650. New York: “Christian angelic hierarchy.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Arno Press, 1981. 273-275. Foundation, Inc. [n.d.] Web. 2009.

Galucci 1588 Lipstorp 1650 Back to catalog entry Lipstorp1653 General info/no refs. (Bound with Descartes' Opera, 1650; the illustration appears in separately paginated work at end: Copernicus Redivivus. 1653). Clavius 1570 Back to catalog entry Clavius1570 On the influence of Clavius on Jesuit scholarship: Lipstorp subscribed to the universal system of Descartes: Lattis, James M. Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Donahue, William. The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres 1595-1650. NY: Arno collapse of Ptolemaic cosmology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 217- Press, 1981. 277; 288-289. 219. On Clavius as one of few astronomers likely to have understood the On the number of heavens: mathematics of Copernicus: Magruder, Kerry V. “Jesuit Science After Galileo: The Cosmology of Gabriele Gingerich, Owen. The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler. New York: Beati.” Centaurus. 51. 3 (August 2009): 195-196. American Institute of Physics, 1993. 235.

Clavius 1611 Back to catalog entry Clavius1611 Regarding biblical images on the title page: Section 3: The Sun Takes Center Stage Remmert, Volker. “Picturing Jesuit anti-Copernican Consensus: astronomy and biblical exegesis in the engraved title-page of Clavius’ Opera mathematica.” Cellarius 1661 Back to catalog entry Cellarius1661 Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773. Toronto: University of On the conception of the atlas by the printer Janson: Toronto Press. 2006. 301-304. Gent, Robert Harry van. The finest atlas of the heavens. [Harmonia macrocosmica of 1660; Facsimile with introduction]. Hong Kong; Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006. 9; 239.

Section 4: The Spheres of the Planets Shatter Quotes from Copernicus: Koyre. From the closed world to the infinite universe. Baltimore: The Johns Brahe 1632 Back to catalog entry Brahe1632 Hopkins Press, 1957. 31-33. The quote “But in the center…the whole of it” Quote from Brahe, and his discovery of the new star: continues: “Therefore it is not improperly that some people call it the lamp of the Hirshfeld, Alan. Parallax: the Race to Measure the Cosmos. New York: W.H. world… Thus, assuredly, as residing in the royal see *seat or throne+ the Sun Freeman, 2001. 75; governs the surrounding family of stars.” 81-82.

Scheuchzer 1734 Aristotle had taught that no changes occurred in the realm of the stars and General info/no refs. planets: Aristotle wrote that we “see nothing coming to be spontaneously in the heavens” (Physics II.4.196b, 1-4).

Wing 1651 Back to catalog entry Wing1651 Aristotle on the incorruptibility of the heavens: General info on Wing: Aristotle wrote: “If the body which moves with a circular motion cannot admit of Applebaum, Wilbur. “Vincent Wing.” Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1976. increase or diminution, it is reasonable to suppose that it is also unalterable...So far as our inherited records reach, no change appears to have taken place either in the whole scheme of the outermost heaven [the sphere of the fixed stars] or in Wright 1742 Back to catalog entry Wright1742 any of its proper parts.” Aristotle adds that the very word aither (the medium in Ancient authors quoted by Copernicus: which the stars reside) means runs always for an eternity of time, and that this Gingerich, Owen. The Eye of heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler. New York: word, “handed down from our distant ancestors even to our own day” supports American Institute of Physics, 1993. 188. the eternal, unchanging nature of the sphere of the fixed stars. (On the Heavens 1.3.270a, 33- 270b, 24) Relevant quotation: Plato on the creation of the sun (in the earth-centered universe): Aristotelian doctrine on unchanging realm of stars can be recognized in “That there might be some visible measure of *the planets’+ relative Ptolemy’s Almagest: swiftness and slowness as they proceeded in their eight courses, God Toomer, G. J., transl. Ptolemy’s Almagest. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984. 321- lighted a fire, which we now call the sun, in the second from the 322. earth of these orbits, that it might give light to the whole of heaven, and that the *planets+ might participate in number… Thus, then, and Blaue 1662 Back to catalog entry Blaue1662 for this reason the night and the day were created.” On Brahe’s observatory, the discovery of the comet, and its location in the Timaeus (Jowett 2:20) celestial realm: Hirshfeld, Alan. Parallax: the Race to Measure the Cosmos. New York: W.H. Freeman, 2001. 85; 88-89. See sections 5-7 for quotes regarding other stars as suns That the comet convinced Brahe of the fluidity of heavens: Grant, Edward. Planets, Stars, and Orbs: the Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687. Cambridge University Press, 1994. 347-353.

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University Press, 1992. 379. Tycho’s universal system precluded material celestial spheres: The spheres of Mars and the sun would intersect. Lattis, James M. Between Kepler 1619 Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic General info/no refs. Cosmology. The University of Chicago Press, 1994. 211.

Quote by Brahe from his treatise: Beati 1662 Back to catalog entry Beati1662 Translated by Bruce Bradley, Librarian for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library, On Beati’s cosmos: from Dreyer, J.L.E. (ed.) Opera Omnia (1913-29), vol. 4 (De mundi aetherei). 222. Magruder, Kerry V. “Jesuit Science After Galileo: the Cosmology of Gabriele Beati.” Centaurus 51. 3 (August 2009): cosmos 189-212; cosmos and Tychonic system 204; cosmos and scripture 196-198. Kepler 1606 Back to catalog entry Kepler1606 A new star in Cygnus was discovered by Blaeu: On Beati’s work as representing the dissolution of the planetary spheres: Frommert, Hartmut . “Early variable star discoverers.” Spider’s Homepage. SEDS Ashworth, William B. “Iconography of a New Physics.” History and Technology 4.2 (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space). 1995. Web. 2009. (1987): 267-268. http://seds.org/~spider/spider/Vars/Add/var-dis.html On Clavius’ opposition to fluid heavens: Kepler’s new star in the constellation Opiuchus: Specifically the reference to “fish in the sea or birds in the air” Ashworth, William B. “Out of This World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas” Lattis, James M. Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Linda Hall Library. 2007. Web. 2009. Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 103. http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/stars/kep.htm th Kepler 1606 is the 11 entry in this online exhibit. The quote from Aristotle is provided in full at the end of the bibliographical references for Section 1. (Metaphysics 12.8.1074a,1-14). Kepler estimated the extent of the sphere of the fixed stars: Taton, Rene and Curtis Wilson. Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics. Cambridge University Press, 1989. (Part A: Tycho Brahe to Newton). 74. Section 5: The Sphere of Fixed Stars Dissolves Note: several authors who provided these early depictions of the stars dispersed Note: Kepler suggested that the sun is in the middle of the universe; other stars also supported the idea of the “plurality of worlds” (see quotes re: “stars as suns” are symmetrically arranged around it. See Donahue, William H. The Dissolution of in this section, and section 7) the Celestial Spheres: 1595-1650. New York: Arno Press, 1981. 96. Note: Kepler’s stellar sphere was only a few miles in thickness. See Van Helden, Bruno 1591 Back to catalog entry Bruno1591 Albert. Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimensions from Aristarchus to Halley. On statement from trial: The University of Chicago Press, 1985. 88. Saiber, Arielle. “Ornamental Flourishes in Giordano Bruno’s Geometry.” Sixteenth

Century Journal 34. 3 (2003): 741. Kepler’s rejection of planetary spheres; quote about Brahe:

Donahue, William H. Johannes Kepler: New Astronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge The trilogy included De triplici minimo et mensura, De monade, and De immenso:

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Gatti, Hilary. Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science. Ithaca: Cornell University viewing the stars as suns. For example, Bruno’s character Press, 1999. 29. Philotheo suggests that space has no centre nor boundary [an idea from Nicolas of Cusa], and that “there are in this space those A source book of Euclidean proofs: countless bodies such as our earth and other earths, our sun and Saiber. 731. other suns, which all revolve within this infinite space… The earth no more than any other world is at the center… and the same is On Bruno’s opinion that mathematics lacked vincoli, the bonds of love, that exist true of all other bodies.” (On the Infinite Universe and Worlds 2nd between number, figure, form, divinity, and nature: dialogue, following fifth argument; Singer. 280). Saiber. 731; 742.

On the atom as infused with the divine: Schettino, Ernesto. “The Necessity of the Minima in the Nolan Philosophy.” Giordano Bruno, Philosopher of the Renaissance. Ed. Hilary Gatti. Hants, England: Digges 1596 Back to catalog entry Digges1596 Ashgate, 2002. 313; and Gatti, Hilary. Giordano Bruno and Renaissnce Science. A few years before Bruno: Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. 134. Johnson, Francis R. “The influence of Thomas Digges on the progress of modern astronomy in XVIth century England.” Osiris 1 (1936): 391. On the images as devices internal to the mind, symbolizing aspects of the atom: Note: The Digges image first appeared in the 1576 edition of his father’s almanac, Gatti. 1999. 164-166. and Bruno’s Le Cena de le Ceneri (his first exposition on infinite worlds) did not appear until 1584. On the meaning of the three temple images: Gatti. 1999. 164-173. Digges provided the first English translation of Copernicus: Johnson. 391 On the temple images (mens, intellectus, amor) as seals against the mathematicians: Digges presented the infinite universe as part of Copernicus’ system: Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. University of Johnson. 404. Chicago Press, 1964. 319. Digges was educated by John Dee: On Bruno’s carving of the woodblocks: Johnson. 398-399. Yates. 320. Dee’s library: Quote “Convince our minds of the infinite universe…” “John Dee (Mathematician).” Absolute Astronomy Encyclopedia. n.d. Web. 2009. Bruno, Giordano. On the Infinite Universe and Worlds. 1584. Trans. Dorothea The article states: “In his lifetime Dee amassed the largest library in England and th th Waley Singer. New York: Schuman, 1950. (End of 5 dialogue, 12 argument) 377- one of the largest in Europe… Dee's library, a center of learning outside the 378. universities, became the greatest in England and attracted many scholars.”

Relevant quotation: Dee owned a copy of Lucretius: Bruno was an early and ardent advocate of multiple worlds, French, Peter T. John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus. NY: Routledge,

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1972 (reprinted 2002). 46. Note: After mentioning that Gilbert accepted the rotation of the earth, Koyre includes Gilbert’s quote *from Book VI, chapter III of De magnete] denying Relevant quotations: adamantine spheres and denying the sphere of the fixed stars, and extends the Note: The stars had been perceived as limited to a sphere chiefly quote to include the passage: “How immeasurable then must be the space which because the stellar sphere was thought to rotate. Digges’ translation stretches to those remotest of the fixed stars! How vast and immense the depth of Copernicus made it clear that in that system, the sphere of the of that imaginary sphere!”

stars no longer moved. If it did not move, Digges understood that it

could extend up without limit. He encouraged the idea that the stars Kircher 1660 Back to catalog entry Kircher1660 were at varying distances from earth. On the influence of Kircher: The text on the plate: “This orbe of starres fixed infinitely up Fletcher, John E. “Astronomy in the Life and Correspondence of Athanasius extendeth hit self in altitude sphericallye, and therefore immovable / Kircher.” Isis 61.1. 206 (1970): 52-53. Beyond the great philosopher’s The palace of foelicitye garnished with perpetuall shininge glorious correspondence, Fletcher also notes that in Rome, “many visited Father Kircher.” lightes innumerable, farr excelling our sonne both in quantitye and qualitye ; the very court of coelestiall angels, devoid of greefe and On the Iter narrative: Fletcher. 58; replenished with perfite endless joye; the habitacle for the elect.” Note: reference to stars as suns: “The Iter exstaticum coeleste…explicitly characterized the fixed stars as suns with encircling planets, although it denied Gilbert 1651 Back to catalog entry Gilbert1651 inhabitants even to the planets of our solar system…” (Dick, Steven J. Plurality of Several ideas in De magnete are expanded upon in this later publication: Worlds. Cambridge University Press, 1982. 116). Kelly, Sister Suzanne. The De Mundo of William Gilbert. Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger & Co., 1965. 25. Note: Kelly writes that the “Physiologiae… section *first two books of De mundo] Guericke 1672 Back to catalog entry Guericke1672 was an expansion of the cosmology in the sixth book of De magnete.” Note: Guericke received a copy of Kircher’s Iter (1660; see entry above) and it inspired him to expand his Experimenta Nova to include a physical astronomical Kelly. 58. treatise: Note: Kelly writes that In De magnete, Gilbert “denied the existence of the Volk, O. “Remarks about the History of Celestial Mechanics.” Celestial Mechanics crystalline spheres…, posited the void and effluvia surrounding each star and 2. 3 (1970): 431. planet, scattered the fixed stars at varying distances from the Earth… but only in De mundo did he explain these ideas in detail.” On Guericke’s studies of air and space: Van Helden, Albert. “Guericke, Otto von.” Galileo Project. Rice University. 1995. Quotes from De magnete: Web. 2009. http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/guericke.html Gilbert, William. On the Loadstone. Trans. P. Fleury Mottelay. Baltimore: Peabody Institute Library, 1892 [reprinted 1938]. 319-320. This image includes, for the first time, real named stars in their proper places…: Koyré, Alexandre. From the closed world to the infinite universe. Baltimore: The Ashworth, William B. (Exhibit Advisor). Note to C. Rogers. February 2010. Johns Hopkins Press, 1957. 55-57.

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Relevant quotes: Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Wm. Benton, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. After quoting from Kircher’s work, Guericke asserts that the (Metaphysics 12.7.1072b,3-9). stars are suns having their own satellites: “It can be concluded from this that the fixed stars, which we On fiat as motive force: see, are suns and that among them there are some bodies, Donahue. Dissolution.197. invisible to us here on earth, which undergo a remarkable variety of phases like our moon. These bodies are lighted by the On fiat in the form of angels as motive force: suns, as our moon and the other planets are, and must be Donahue, William. The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres 1595-1650. New York: planets of these suns or solar bodies.” (Experimenta nova. 7.4; Arno Press, 1981. 191. The new (so-called) Magdeburg experiments of Otto von Guericke / by Otto von Guericke. Trans. Margaret Glover Foley Grant, Edward. Planets, Stars, and Orbs: the Medieval Cosmos 1200-1687. Ames. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994. 366.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 567-568.

On Zahn’s Specula physico: Kanas, Nick. Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography. Berlin; New York: Mesmes 1557 Back to catalog entry Mesmes1557 Springer, 2007. 167. Noted as one of the earliest French works providing a description of the Copernican system: Baumgartner, Frederic J. “Skepticism and French Interest in Copernicanism to Gilbert 1600 Back to catalog entry Gilbert1600 1630.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 17 (1986): 78. Description of plate: Gilbert. De Magnete 5.12; Thompson 206.

The unusual inclusion of a comet or meteor in the sphere of the fixed stars: Quote “The centre of the magnetic virtues…” As this work (published the year after the comet of 1556) predates Brahe’s new Gilbert. De Magnete 2.27; Thompson 95. star of 1572, earlier influences must be sought that support change in the stellar sphere or heavenly realm. For example, Girolamo Cardano published works on Gilbert was an animist in the tradition of Plato: comets in 1550 and 1557 suggesting that they were between the moon and the Note: for example see the following passages: stars. (Donahue, William H. The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres 1595-1650. Plato. Timaeus. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. The Dialogues of Plato. New York: NY: Arno Press, 1981. 52; see also: Tabbitta Van Nouhuys. The age of two-faced Random House, 1937. 2 vols. (Jowett 2: 15-16). Janus: the Comets of 1577 and 1618. Leiden: Brill, 1998. 85. Web (Google Books). Gilbert. De Magnete. Trans. Silvanus P. Thompson. On the Magnet by William Gilbert. (Reprint of 1900 ed.) New York: Basic Books, 1958. 209. [see full quotes below under Relevant Quotations] Section 6: Motive Forces and the Stars Additional quotes regarding the animist tradition: Zahn 1696 Back to catalog entry Zahn1696 Plato: “Intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul. For Aristotle on the ultimate motive force and love: which reason, when [the Creator] was framing the universe, he put intelligence in Aristotle. “Metaphysics.” Trans. W.D. Ross. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. soul, and soul in body.” Timaeus (Jowett 2:14)

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Gilbert: “…nothing is excellent, nor precious, nor eminent, that hath not soul… continues as follows: “…an unending action, quick, definite, Therefore the bodies of the globes…had need of souls to be conjoined to them, constant…, harmonious, through the whole mass of matter… for else there were neither life… nor coherence, nor conactus, nor sympathia.” De These movements… are not produced by thoughts or reasonings… Magnete 5.12; Trans. P. Fleury Mottelay. William Gilbert …On the Loadstone… like human acts, which are… imperfect and indeterminate, *but 1600. Baltimore: Peabody Institute Library, 1892 (reprinted 1938). 310. rather the acts of the globes have] in them reason, knowledge, science, judgment, whence proceed acts positive and definite from On the “intelligent” behavior of magnets: the very foundations and beginnings of the world [which] because Gilbert. De Magnete. Trans. P. Fleury Mottelay. William Gilbert …On the of the weakness of our soul, we cannot comprehend.” (De Loadstone… 1600. Baltimore: Peabody Institute Library, 1892 (reprinted 1938). Magnete 5.12; Mottelay 311-312) 311-312. [see full quote below under Relevant Quotations] Kepler 1609 Back to catalog entry Kepler1609 Relevant quotations: Kepler applied Gilbert’s magnetism to the sun: Plato on the soul of the universe: “Now to the animal which was to “By the demonstration of the Englishman William Gilbert, the earth itself is a big comprehend all animals, that figure was suitable which magnet, and is said by the same author… to rotate once a day, just as I conjecture comprehends within itself all other figures. Wherefore he made about the sun… It is therefore plausible, since the earth moves the moon through the world in the form of a globe… the Creator did not think it its species and is a magnetic body, while the sun moves the planets similarly necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, through an emitted species, that the sun is likewise a magnetic body.” Kepler. nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited Astronomia Nova 3.34.176; New Astronomy. Trans. William H. Donahue. to his spherical form [circular motion] was assigned to him… And Cambridge University Press, 1992. 390-391. as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet… And in the centre he put [See also under Pemberton in this section for more on Kepler and magnetism]. the soul, which he diffused throughout the body… and he made the universe a circle moving in a circle, one and solitary, yet by Kepler presented an analogy, illustrated in this diagram: reason of its excellence able to converse with itself, and needing This image appears in chapter 57 of Kepler’s Astronomia Nova. Kepler introduces no other friendship or acquaintance.” Timaeus (Jowett 2: 15-16) it by referring to an earlier mention of the analogy he is about to present: “We shall be obliged once again to take up our oars which were introduced in chapter Gilbert on the soul of the universe: “We consider that the whole 39” *but the passage is actually in chapter 38+. Kepler. Astronomia Nova 4.57.270; universe is animated, and that all the globes, all the stars, and also New Astronomy. Trans. William H. Donahue. 549. the noble earth have been governed since the beginning by their In chapter 38, Kepler describes how ferrymen sometimes suspend a cable high own appointed souls and have motives of self-conservation.” above a river and tether the boat to it with another rope, and that in this way, the Gilbert’s passage continues: “…organs *of the animate world+…are ferrymen can make “the skiffs go in circles, send them hither and thither, and play not fashioned of flesh and blood as animals, or composed of a thousand tricks, without touching the bottom or the banks, but by the use of the regular limbs. Nor can any organs be discerned or imagined by us oar alone, directing the…flow of the river to their own ends.” Kepler. Astronomia in any of the stars, the sun, or the planets.” (De Magnete 5.12; Nova 3.38.185; Donahue 405. Thompson 209) Kepler then applies this analogy to the diagram in chapter 57, which has the sun Gilbert on the intelligent action of the magnetic soul quote at one focus within the circle. “Let there be a circular river CDE, FGH, and in it a

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sailor who revolves his oar once in twice the periodic time of the planet, by an by Empedocles, according to whom the universe is alternately in inherent and perfectly uniform force…. Now the stream, flowing down upon the motion and at rest—in motion, when Love is making the one out of oar at DE will push the ship down toward A, while at C it will push very little.” many, or Strife is making many out of one, and at rest in the “The impulse will be less at C than at F, since our river is weak at C and strong at intermediate periods of time.” (Physica 8.1.250b,25) F” corresponding to the acceleration and deacceleration of the orbit of a planet. Kepler. Astronomia Nova 4.57.270; Donahue 549-550.

Seller 1700 Back to catalog entry Seller1700 Descartes 1644 Back to catalog entry Descartes1644 Aristotle wrote that an infinite stellar region cannot rotate: Ginzburg, Vladimir B. Prime elements of ordinary matter. Boca Raton: Universal “The infinite,…cannot,… move in a circle. For there is no centre of the infinite, and Publishers, 2007 (2nd ed.) 24-27. On Anaximander’s vortex theory; as soon as that which moves in a circle moves about the centre.” (De Caelo 1.7.275b,15) contrary qualities are manifest, they are reabsorbed into the uncreated; vortex theory of Anaxagoras; Empedocles and tea leaves. On souls of the planets as motive force: Donahue, William H. The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres 1595-1650. New Quote “If some straws are floating…” York: Arno Press, 1981. 192. Descartes. Principia Philosophia 3.30; Trans. Valentine Rodger Miller. Principles of Philosophy. London: Reidel, 1983. 96. Thompson, Silvanus Phillips. On the Magnet by William Gilbert. (Reprint of Thompson’s translation published in 1900). New York: Basic Books, 1958. 209- Description of plate: “If S, for example, is the Sun…” 210. Descartes 3.23; Miller 92-93. Descartes sought a mechanical explanation: Description of the origin of the movement of comets: Note: Implying that there are no physical spheres in the heavens by asserting that Descartes 3.126; Miller 155-163. the heavens are fluid, “an opinion which is now commonly held by all Astronomers,” Descartes clarifies that fluidity is not the same as empty space, as Relevant Quotations some astronomers suggested. Empty space “not only offers no resistance to the Aristotle on the vortex: “Empedocles…says that the world, by being motion of other bodies, but also lacks the force to carry them along with it.” The whirled around, received a movement quick enough to overpower its particles comprising the fluid heavens, Descartes asserts, “have motion in own downward tendency, and thus has been kept from destruction themselves” allowing them to move the heavenly bodies. Descartes. Principia all this time.” Philosophia 3.24-25. Trans. Valentine Rodger Miller. Principles of Philosophy. (De Caelo 2.1.284a,25) London: Reidel, 1983. 93.

Aristotle on the ultimate cause of motion according to Anaxagoras [On God as the ultimate source of motion in Descartes, see under Pemberton]. and Empedocles: “If then it is possible that at any time nothing should be in motion, this must come about in one of two ways: either Newton 1729 Back to catalog entry Newton1729 in the manner described by Anaxagoras, who says that all things were This frontispiece features a novel view of a novel idea: together and at rest for an infinite period of time, and that then Mind Note: The image of the solar system in the frontispiece of volume 1 is unique in introduced motion and separated them; or in the manner described that it indicates lines of gravity. One possible inspiration for it may be found in the

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diagram labeled as Figure 5 on Plate 5 of vol.2 (illustrating Proposition XXV, Theorem XX, in Book 2). This diagram is among a few diagrams drawn in shadow in the foreground of the frontispiece of volume 2, drawing a visual connection Pemberton 1728 Back to catalog entry Pemberton1728 between the frontispieces. In the second frontispiece, gravity is represented by On gravity not inherent: “That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to putti performing pendulum experiments on the resistance of air (behind them at matter…is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in right, the fluid experiments can be seen in shadow). philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.” Note: The frontispiece of volume 1 includes a passage from a dedicatory poem by Newton. Letter to Richard Bentley. MS. Newton Project. University of Sussex. Edmund Halley found at the beginning of Newton’s work: “Mathematics drove [n.d.] Web. 2009. http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk away the Cloud, no longer doubting in the mists we stray; Genius’ high summit grants to us the Way to reach the blessed Gods’ Abodes and pierce the lofty Limits Inherent soul replaced by matter in motion: of the Universe.” (trans.by Otto Steinmayer). Another passage from the poem Roger, Jacques. “The mechanistic conception of life.” God & Nature. Ed. David more directly relates to the image of the solar system: “The inmost place of the Lindberg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. 280. heavens, now gained, breaks into view, nor longer hidden is the force that turns “According to the Epicurean philosophy, atoms were naturally endowed with the farthest orb. The sun exalted on his throne bids all things tend toward him by activity; there was no need for any other source of motion.” In the 17th century, inclination and descent.” (trans. By Leon Richardson). Halley makes a poetic “The majority of scientists regarded matter as entirely passive;” God gave matter reference to the farthest orb (the stellar sphere), which by that time was no motion. longer thought to exist or to turn, and the last sentence corresponds well with the pendulum theme and the lines of gravity shown. On Kepler’s rejection of anima as motive force in his Epitome: Gingerich, Owen. Johannes Kepler, in part A, p. 74 of Rene Taton. Planetary Newton describes extensive experiments: astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics. Volume 2. Cambridge: “I found the resistance of the air by the following experiments. I suspended a Cambridge University Press, 1989. wooden globe or ball… by a fine thread on a firm hook, so that the distance between the hook and the centre of oscillation of the globe was 10 ½ foot…” Note: in his Astronomia nova, Kepler addresses himself, agreeing with Plato (Motte. Book II. Section VI. Gen.Schol. 95-96.) regarding the motion of the planets: “So then, Kepler, would you give each of the “In order to compare the resistance of different fluids with each other, I made the planets a pair of eyes? By no means, nor is this necessary, no more than that they following trial. I procured a wooden vessel 4 feet long… This vessel, being need feet or wings in order to move.” But he rejects Plato’s inherent soul: uncovered, I filled with spring water, and having immersed pendulums therein, I “Anyone who says that the body of a planet is moved by an inherent force is just made them oscillate in the water.” (Motte. Book II. Section VI. Gen. Schol. 103) plain wrong.” (Astronomia nova 3.39.191; Donahue 414). Kepler stops short of rejecting Mind in this work: He stated that gravity affects the bodies of the planets in the solar system in the “the mental motion appears to give evidence of the magnetic one, and to require same way that it pulls bodies toward the earth: its assistance, no matter how you equip it with an animate faculty of moving the “The nature of gravity towards the planets is the same as towards the earth… The body. For in the first place, mind by itself can do nothing in a body… an animate weights of the planets toward the sun must be as their quantities of matter.” faculty cannot transport its body from place to place…Therefore, it will be a (Motte. Book III. Prop. VI. Theor. VI. 221-222). magnetic, that is, natural, faculty of sympathy between the bodies of the planet and the sun. Thus the mind calls upon nature and the magnets for assistance.” Quote: “If the circumsolar Planets were supposed to be let fall…” Kepler. Astronomia Nova 4.57.280; New Astronomy. Trans. William H. Donahue. Motte. Book III. Prop. VI. Theorem VI. 222. 568.

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admired at close range by [alien] reasonable creatures. (Huygens 8). Note: Although Kepler in his later work denied that the planets were besouled, he never lived down his early musings. A nineteenth century dictionary includes this Huygens 1774 Back to catalog entry Huygens1774 entry: Huygens. 126. Kepler’s fairy: the fairy which guides the planets. Kepler said that each planet was “An amazing thing it must be, all of a sudden to have the Sun darken’d, and fall guided in its elliptical orbit by a resident angel. (Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of into a pitch-night, without seeing any cause of such an accident. All which while Phrase and Fable. 1898.) their Moons are their only Comfort.” The dictionary entry makes a leap between the Platonic anima and the Christian interpretation of the Aristotelian eternal movers (Metaphysics 12.8.1073b) as Huygens 1724 Back to catalog entry Huygens1724 angels. Bos, Henk J. M. “Christiaan Huygens”. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. NY: Scribner’s, 1972. On the requirement for God’s continuous presence, in Descartes: Crowe, Michael J. The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750-1900. Cambridge: Ashworth, William B. “Catholicism and Early Modern Science.” God & Nature. Ed. Cambridge University Press, 1986. 20-22. David Lindberg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. 139. Scheiner 1630 Back to catalog entry Scheiner1630

On sunspots as perfect planets: “In him all things are contained and moved…” Donahue, William. The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres. NY: Arno Press, 1981. Newton. Principia (General Scholium). Trans. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman. 108. Isaac Newton. The Principia. University of California Press, 1999. 941-942.

Wilkins 1640

General info/no refs.

Section 7: Plurality of Worlds

Descartes 1656 Back to catalog entry Descartes1656 Huygens 1698 Back to catalog entry Huygens1698 Our sun was in fact not the center of anything except our own planetary system: Huygens, Christian. The Celestial Worlds Discover’d. London: Frank Cass and Co., Note: as noted under Descartes 1644 in Section 6, Descartes removed our sun 1968. (Facsimile reproduction). from a central location and placed it among the other stars in his theory of Multitude of earths (Huygens 11) vortices. Girodano Bruno had also placed our sun among the other stars; he in The other planets are like earth: “Now since in so many things they thus agree,” turn had been influenced by Nicolas of Cusa, who espoused the idea that “God is Huygens suggests that “the other planets are as beautiful and as well stock’d an infinite sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.” with Inhabitants as the Earth.” (Huygens 17-18) Grant, Edward. Planets, Stars, and Orbs: the Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687. Note: other relevant topics: Guessing about distant planets by observing moon Cambridge University Press, 1994. 175. (Huygens 18); the planets are solid like the earth; they have gravity as evidenced in their round shape (Huygens 19); let us see by what steps we must rise to the The laws of motion of Descartes and of Newton: attaining some knowledge in the state and furniture of these new earths. How Ashworth, William B. (Exhibit Advisor). Note to C. Rogers. March 2010: likely is it that they may be stock’d with plants and animals as well as we are. “One interesting consequence of both Descartes’ and Newton’s theories is that, (Huygens 19); on other solar systems: stars that are distant to us are probably since inertia is universal (Descartes), or gravitation is universal (Newton), then

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stars could well be other suns, with other planets going around them. This was not true before them (with the significant exception of Bruno).” Not true, for Euler 1744 Back to catalog entry Euler1744 example, of the motive forces of Gilbert or Kepler (see under Section 6). Youschkevitch, A. P. “Euler, Leonhard.” Dictionary of Scientific Biography. NY:

Scribner’s, 1971. Quote: Lucretius. De Rerum Natura 2.1069; On the Nature of the Universe. Trans. Ronald Doppelmayer 1742 Back to catalog entry Doppelmayr1742 Latham. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1951. 91. Aristotle. De Caelo. 1.9.278a, 25.

Mallement 1679 Back to catalog entry Mallement1679 Barin 1686 Back to catalog entry Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. Vol. 8. NY: Magruder, Kerry V. “The idiom of a six day creation and global depictions in Columbia University Press, 1957. 340. Theories of the Earth.” Geology and Religion. Ed. Martina Kolbl-Ebert. London: Schechner, Sara J. Comets, Popular Culture and the Birth of Modern Cosmology. Geological Society, 2009. 52-53. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. 111.

Fontenelle 1686 General info/no refs. Section 8: Measuring the Distance to the Stars Fontenelle 1701 Back to catalog entry Fontenelle1701 Note: the atlases by Flamsteed, Jamieson, and Meissner are used in the exhibit Delorme, Suzanne. “Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bouyer (or Bovier) De.” Dictionary of simply to show the locations of stars that were the focus of various astronomers in Scientific Biography. NY: Scribner’s, 1972. the quest for stellar parallax. Atlases appropriate to the periods discussed were Dick, Steven J. Plurality of Worlds. Cambridge University Press, 1982. 123-127. selected, although the Flamsteed edition is rather later and was selected because Flamsteed was both a parallax seeker and the source of the atlas. The time span for Gamma Draconis as the focus of parallax ranged from 1669 (Hooke) to 1679 Bonnycastle 1787 Back to catalog entry Bonnycastle1787 (Flamsteed) to 1725 (Bradley). Guidance with the atlases was provided by Plato. Timaeus. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. The Dialogues of Plato. New York: William B. Ashworth (Exhibit Advisor). Random House, 1937. 2 vols. (Jowett 2:15).

Maupertuis 1742 Back to catalog entry Maupertuis1742 Flamsteed 1776 Back to catalog entry Flamsteed1776 Maupertuis’ concept of variable stars: Ashworth, William B. (Exhibit Advisor). Note to C. Rogers. March 2010. On Hooke and Draconis: Grant, Robert. History of Physical Astronomy. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852. 541. Hirshfeld, Alan W. Parallax: the Race to Measure the Cosmos. NY: Freeman, 2001. 144. Principle of least action: On Flamsteed and Draconis: Glass, Bentley. “Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau De.” Dictionary of Scientific Hirshfeld. 147. Biography. NY: Scribner’s, 1974. On Bradley and Draconis: Nelson, Richard. Ed. “Principle of Least Action: Maupertuis.” Cambridge Forecast Hirshfeld. 155-156. Group. 2006. Web. 2009.

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On this edition of Flamsteed’s atlas: Norway.” The Reception of Copernicus’ Heliocentric Theory. Jerzy Dobrzycki. Ed. Ashworth, William B. “Out of This World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas” Dordrecht-Holland: D. Reidel, 1972-73. 142. Note: Moesgaard mentions the Linda Hall Library. 2007. Web. 2009. meridian circle as built in Roemer’s home observatory but it was not built until his http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/stars/for.htm country observatory was complete (Robert Grant 463). The instrument in The 1776 ed. of Flamsteed’s atlas is catalog number 30; other Flamsteed entries are catalog numbers 27, 33, and 35 in this online exhibit. Roemer’s home observatory was the transit instrument (also used to observe along the meridian). (Robert Grant 463). On Bradley, aberration of light: On Roemer’s results of obss.of Sirius and Lyra [Vega]: Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe: the Cosmological Distance Ladder. Moesgaard states that Roemer “maintains to have found, for the said two stars Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. 67-68. separated by about 180 degrees, a semestrial variation of the difference between their right ascensions which shows the double sum of their parallaxes to be about 0;1 degree” (Moesgaard 142). Roemer was afraid his clocks were off due to Horrebow 1735 (Roemer) Back to catalog entry Horrebow1735 affects of temperature variations and did not publish his paper. (Moesgaard 142). Detailed description of Roemer’s transit instrument: Grant, Robert. History of Physical Astronomy. London: Bohn, 1852. 461-467. Note: Unrelated to his work on stellar parallax, Roemer’s most celebrated contribution to astronomy was his determination of the speed of light. Observing (translated from Horrebow). This transit instrument, used in Roemer’s home, was Jupiter’s moon Io over many months, he noted that the time it took for its light to his main instrument until his “Tusculan Observatory” was built in 1704. (Grant reach his telescope varied with the distance of earth from Io as Earth orbited the 465). The transit instrument built in his home was eventually (1715) placed in the sun. He realized that Io’s light took longer to reach earth when earth was further Round Tower (Grant 462), which Roemer did not use as his main observatory away from Io than when it was closer, and he timed the difference. (Fowler, because of wind. Michael. “Speed of Light.” UVA Physics Department. N.d. Web. 2009. http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/lectures/spedlite.html; Roemer, Ole. Brief description of the engraving of transit instrument (with image of a “Demonstration touchant le movement de la lumiere.” Journal des Scavans. commemorative bronze relief inspired by the engraving): December 7, 1676.) Neilson, Axel V. “Ole Roemer and his Meridian Circle.” Vistas in Astronomy. Beer. Ed. London: Pergamon Press, 1968. Vol. 10. 105-112. Relevant Quotation Roemer measured the time it took light to travel from a celestial On Mayer’s use of Roemer’s Triduum, and that the search for parallax inspired body to earth; Plato in contrast explained how the celestial bodies Roemer to invent/build his instruments: measured time: “When the father and creator saw the creature which he has made Hoeg, Erik. “400 Years of Astrometry: from Tycho Brahe to Hipparcos.” moving and living…, he rejoiced, and in his joy determined to... Contribution to the History of Astrometry. No. 8. Noordwijk: ESTC (2008):6. make the universe eternal, so far as might be. …Wherefore he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in On parallax as Roemer’s main goal, and Horrebow’s publications of stellar order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according parallax based on his own and Roemer’s obss.: to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call Moesgaard, Kristian Peder. “How Copernicanism took root in Denmark and time… Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of

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time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. 71-72. planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time… And for this reason the fixed stars were On the Gold Medal ceremony: created, to be divine and eternal animals, ever-abiding and Belkora, Leila. Minding the Heavens: the Story of Our Discovery of the Milky Way. revolving after the same manner and on the same spot…” Bristol UK: Inst of Physics Pub Inc, 2003. 156. (Jowett. v. 2. Timaeus, p. 19)

Jamieson 1822 Back to catalog entry Jamieson1822 Section 9: From Solar Systems to Star Systems Bessel’s parallax: calculated distance in miles 60 trillion: Hirshfeld, Alan W. Parallax: the Race to Measure the Cosmos. NY: Freeman, 2001. Wright 1750 Back to catalog entry Wright1750Perspective 262-263. A summary of Wright’s proposals: Jaki, Stanley L. Trans. Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. By Ptolemy estimated the distance to the sphere of the fixed stars as about 60 Immanuel Kant. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1981. 22 (Introduction). million miles. Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe: the Cosmological Distance Ladder. Another summary of Wright’s proposals: Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. 34. Note: Derived from his Ptolemy’s Harrison, Edward. Darkness at Night: a Riddle of the Universe. Cambridge MA; Planetary Hypothesis. London: Harvard University Press, 1987. 103; 241.

On Bessel’s method: A discussion of Wright’s proposals: Webb 71. Whitrow, G.J. “Kant and the Extragalactic Nebulae.” Colloquium on Historical Aspects of Astronomy. University of Exeter, 1966. 50-55.

Arago 1855 Back to catalog entry Arago1855 On Immanuel Kant’s acknowledgement of Wright’s proposals: On the Fraunhofer heliometer: Munitz, Milton. Ed. Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. By Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe: the Cosmological Distance Ladder. Immanuel Kant. Trans. W. Hastie. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969. Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. 70. xiv-xviii (Introduction).

Gill, David, Sir. “Heliometer.” 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. (author identified in The English translation of the complete review of Wright’s work that was cited print ed.). by Kant: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Heliometer Hastie, W. Trans. “The Hamburg Account of Wright’s Theory.” Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. By Immanuel Kant. Ed. Milton Munitz. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969. 170-180 (Appendix). Meissner 1805 Back to catalog entry Meissner1805 On Henderson: Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe: the Cosmological Distance Ladder. Descriptions of the plates are taken from:

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Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe. 1750. common center…but in a kind of shell, or concave orb.” *plates XXIV-XXV]. Facsimile reprint. Ed. Michael A. Hoskin. London: Macdonald and Co., 1971: 62- Description of plate: “a representation of the Convexity, if I may call it so, 65. of the intire Creation, as a universal Coalition of all the Stars confphered

round one general Center.” (Wright. 64.) Back to catalog entry 1. Perspective view of Milky Way: “the irregularity we observe in it I judge to be entirely owing to our Sun’s Position.” (Wright. 62-63.) Wright1750Sphere 2. Stars orbit a central point: (Note: the realization that the sun and other 5. Cross section of spherical galaxy: Description of plate: “a central Section of stars orbit a central point was Wright’s key contribution to astronomy). “It the same, with the Eye of Providence seated in the Center, as in the virtual being once agreed, that the stars are in motion,… we must consider in what Agent of Creation.” (Wright. 64.) manner they move.” Stars must move in curves rather than straight lines Note: Wright proposes an ideal center of the galaxy shown in the plate of “i.e. in an orbit;” “It only now remains to shew how a number of stars, so the cross section of the spherical galaxy: “Here the to-all extending Eye of disposed in a circular manner round any given center, may solve the Providence” etc.; “Thus in the center of Creation, I would willingly [appearance of the Milky Way]. There are two ways possible [Wright was introduce a primitive Fountain” etc. (Wright 78-79.); and a real center of indifferent about the shape and never stated a preference+… The first is… the galaxy shown in the plate of the ring-shaped galaxy : “But what this all moving the same way, and not much deviating from the same plane, as central Body really is… if the Creation is real and not merely ideal, be either the planets in their heliocentric motion do round the solar body. [Diagram]: a globe of fire superior to the sun, or otherwise a vast terraqueous or In this case the primary, secondary, and tertiary constituent orbits, &c. terrestrial sphere...” (Wright. 79.) Back to catalog entry Wright1750Cross framing the hypotheses, are represented in plate XXII.” This plate identifies the earth (C) orbiting the sun (B), which orbits a central point (A). (Wright. 63.) Back to catalog entry 3. Ring-shaped galaxy: Wright introduces the ring-shaped galaxy on p. 63: Bode 1812 Back to catalog entry Bode1812 “There are two ways possible… The first is…,. all moving the same way, and Ashworth, William B. “Out of This World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas” not much deviating from the same plane” but Wright describes the plate of Linda Hall Library. 2007. Web. 2009. the ring system on p. 65: “Hence we may imagine some Creations of Stars http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/stars/bodb.htm Bode’s Uranigraphia is catalog entry 36 in this online exhibit. may move…; others again, as the primary planets do, in a general Zone or

Zodiack, or more properly in the manner of Saturn’s rings…as shewn in Relevant Quotations plate XXVIII [edge-on view of ring shape] . Nothing being more evident, Galileo and the Milky Way: Although he does not speculate on why than that if all the stars we see moved in one vast ring, like those of Saturn, the stars would gather there, Galileo’s description of the Milky Way round any central body, or point, the general phaenomena of our stars as seen through the telescope for the first time is thrilling: would be solved by it; see plate XXIX” *view of ring shape from above, “I have observed the nature and the material of the Milky Way. With figure 1; and edge-on, figure 2]. (Wright. 63; 65.) Back to catalog entry the aid of the telescope this has been scrutinized so directly and with such ocular certainty that all the disputes which have vexed 4. Spherical galaxy: “The second method of solving this phaenomena, is by a philosophers through so many ages have been resolved, and we are spherical order of the stars, all moving with different direction round one at last freed from wordy debates about it. The galaxy is, in fact,

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nothing but a congeries of innumerable stars grouped together in Hevelius included Halley’s stars in this atlas: clusters. Upon whatever part of it the telescope is directed, a vast “Hevelius used Halley’s chart as the basis for his own southern map.” Ashworth, crowd of stars is immediately presented to view. Many of them are William B. “Out of This World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas” Linda Hall rather large and quite bright, while the number of smaller ones is Library. 2007. Web. 2009. quite beyond calculation.” http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/exhibit/exhibits/stars/hev.htm (Galileo. Sidereus nuncius. 1610. Trans. Stillman Drake. Discoveries The atlas is catalog entry 22 in this online exhibit. and Opinions of Galileo. NY: Doubleday, 1957.) The apparent variation in the depth of field of the stars inherent in Halley’s catalog of the southern stars: his description lent support to the conception of the stars as Halley, Edmond. Catalogus stellarum australium. 1679. Facsimile online. Internet dispersed rather than limited to a sphere. Archives. Web. 2009. Note: Halley recorded several star positions in Argo and Canis Major in relation to the “heart of the serpent” and Sirius (the nose of the Plato and the Milky Way: the only author apart from Thomas Wright dog). 21-24. who assigned a structural role to the Milky Way may be Plato. Some http://www.archive.org/stream/catalogusstella00hallgoog#page/n21/mode/2up scholars believe that the spindle in his “Myth of Er” (Republic, Book X. Jowett: 1:874) represented the Milky Way, on which the whorl of On Halley’s discovery of the proper motion of stars: our planetary system rotated. In that analogy, the Milky Way is a Cook, Alan. Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas. Oxford: Clarendon “line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole Press, 1998. 348-349. heaven… this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the under-girders of a trireme.” This line of light Halley, Edmond. “Considerations on the Change of the Latitudes of Some of the is described as a spindle that pierces the center of the whorl. The Principal Fixt Stars.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 1718. whorl is comprised of nested whorls, “like vessels which fit into one 30.355.736-738. another.” The outermost, or largest, is “spangled,” representing the hemisphere of the starry sky; within it are the whorls of the planets. Thomas Wright quoted Halley’s article: Plato seems to suggest that the ends of the Milky Way extend Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe. 1750. considerably beyond the hemisphere of the stars. (Purves, John. Facsimile reprint. Ed. Michael A. Hoskin. London: Macdonald and Co., 1971: 53- Selections from the Dialogues of Plato, with preface by Jowett. 54. [quote lacks closing quotation marks, near bottom of p. 54]. Oxford: Clarendon, 1883. Agrees that Plato’s spindle represents the Milky Way; Jowett, Benjamin. Republic of Plato translated into English. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. Disagrees that Plato’s spindle Kant 1798 Back to catalog entry Kant1798 represents the Milky Way.) Kant credited Thomas Wright for providing some ideas for his cosmology: Kant, Immanuel. Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. Trans. Stanley L. Jaki. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1981. 30-31 (Jaki’s introd.); Hevelius 1690 Back to catalog entry Hevelius1690 88-90 (Kant). Edmond Halley sailed to St. Helena… to record the positions of over 300 stars: Cook, Alan. Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas. Oxford: Clarendon Wright seemed unaware of the limitations that gravity would place: Press, 1998. 65-79. Wright: “But we are not confined by this Theory to this form only; there may be various systems of stars… it is not at all necessary, that every collective body of

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stars should move in the same direction, or after the same model of motion, but this theme: may as reasonably be supposed as much to vary… Hence we may imagine some Pitts Theology Library. Digital Image Archive. N.d. Web. 2009. Creations of stars may move in the direction of perfect spheres, all variously http://www.pitts.emory.edu/dia/listform.cfm Note: for example, see no.1557BiblV2.Pagnini, Sante: inclined, direct and retrograde [this could not happen]; others again, as the http://www.pitts.emory.edu/woodcuts/1557BiblV2/00009041.jpg primary planets do, in a general zone or zodiac, or more properly in the manner of Saturn’s rings” *this follows Newton’s laws+.

Back to catalog entry Flammarion1888 Flammarion 1888 Note: this popular image is often described as a Renaissance woodcut, but it first Section 10: The First Map of the Galaxy appeared in, and was drawn especially for, this 1888 edition of Flammarion. The text that it illustrates, describing the history of the stellar crystalline sphere, is as Bode 1782 Back to catalog entry Bode1782 delightful as the image.

Magruder, Kerry. Home page. “Is This a Medieval Flat-Earth Woodcut?” 2003. Forbes, Eric G. Tobias Mayer’s Opera Inedita: the first translation of the Web. 2009. (Includes English translation not only of the caption, but of the entire Lichtenberg edition of 1775. NY: Macmillan, 1971. 110-112. passage). http://homepage.mac.com/kvmagruder/flatEarth/ Herschel 1783 Back to catalog entry Herschel1783

Herschel, William. “On the Proper Motion of the Sun and Solar System.” Pre-Raphaelite: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 73:247-283 (January 1, 1783). Note: This nineteenth-century art movement was characterized by an interest in art of the fifteenth century. Since the image is not a Renaissance image, was Herschel 1785 Back to catalog entry made in the nineteenth century, and could be interpreted as representing the style, it may be best described as belonging to or influenced by this movement. Herschel, William. “On the Construction of the Heavens.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 75:213-266 (January 1, 1785). Origin of image: Note: between his 1783 and 1785 papers, Herschel published another paper Flammarion woodcut. Wikipedia. N.p. n.d. Web. 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_woodcut in the Philosophical Transactions entitled “Account of some Observations Note: this source notes that the anonymous, unsigned image could have been tending to investigate the Construction of the Heavens.” (January 1, 1784 drawn by Flammarion himself, who was trained in engraving. This seems likely, as 74:437-451; Included in Hoskin, Michael. William Herschel and the the image does not seem to be in the particular style of any other artist of the Construction of the Heavens. London: Oldbourne, 1963. 71-82; plate 3 caption period. Quill pens are drawn in the frame of the image, and are also found in the mentions Wright). A close reading of the description of the Milky Way in this frame of Walter Crane’s bookplate (The Denis Gouey Bookbinding Studio. N.d. article, read alongside Thomas Wright’s, reveals some paraphrasing by Web. 2009. http://bookbinding.com/book-cover-design/bookplates) but the Herschel of Wright’s work. (Herschel’s article p. 76 in Hoskin; pp. 443-444 in Flammarion image does not particularly look like Crane’s work. Phil. Trans.; compare to pp. 62-63 in Wright’s Original Theory). Leila Belkora

notes that Herschel owned a copy of Wright’s Original Theory, annotated in Ezekiel’s Vision: The wheel-within-a-wheel is the tipoff. An especially good collection of images of

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Herschel’s hand. Belkora, Leila. Minding the Heavens. Bristol: Institute of Lindblad demonstrated in 1925 that the sun orbits the galaxy: Physics. 2003. 100.) “Bertil Lindblad.” Obituary notices. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 7. (1966): 332.

Nebulae as the original impetus in making the 1783 star sweeps:

Sidgwick, John B. William Herschel: Explorer of the Heavens. London: Faber Coda Back to catalog entry Coda and Faber, 1953. 116. Multiple galaxies: “But we are not confined by this Theory to this form *i.e. Herschel’s introduction of his star gaging technique: Hoskin, Michael A. William Herschel and the Construction of the Heavens. these forms: the ring-shaped or spherical] only; there may be various London: Oldbourne, 1963. 77. systems of stars [Wright did not seem to particularly care what forms they may take; his key idea was that they orbited together around a central On Herschel’s assumptions, map, and approach to observing: point+… it is not at all necessary, that every collective body of stars should Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe : the Cosmological Distance Ladder. move in the same direction, or after the same model of motion, but may Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. 131-135. reasonably be supposed as much to vary… Hence we may imagine some Creations [galaxies] of stars may move in the direction of perfect spheres… others again, as the primary planets do, in a general zone or zodiac, or Johnston 1855 Back to catalog entry Johnston1855 more properly in the manner of Saturn’s rings.” Note: Wright states in the On Herschel and double stars: text that “Creations of stars,” or galaxies, may take diverse shapes, but he Sidgwick, John B. William Herschel: Explorer of the Heavens. London: Faber includes more illustrations of spherical galaxies. (Wright. 65.) and Faber, 1953. 178-180. “As the visible Creation is supposed to be full of sidereal systems and planetary worlds, so on, in like similar manner, the endless immensity is an unlimited plenum of Creations… see plate XXXI… plate XXXII represents Mitchel 1861 Back to catalog entry Mitchel1861 their sections.” (Wright. 83.) On the extent of Herschel’s galaxy: “That this in all probability may be the real case, is in some degree made Hoskin, Michael. William Herschel and the Construction of the Heavens. evident by the many cloudy spots, just perceivable by us, as far without our London: Oldbourne, 1963. 169. starry regions, in which tho’ visibly luminous spaces, no one star or particular constituent body can possibly be distinguished; those in all Smyth 1844 Back to catalog entry Smyth1844 likelyhood may be external Creation, bordering upon the known one, too Shapley’s 1918 galactic cluster study showed that our sun is not near the remote for even our telescopes to reach.” (Wright. 83.) center of the galaxy:

Longair, M.S. The Cosmic Century: a History of Astrophysics and Cosmology. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2006. 83.

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Taton, Rene and Curtis Wilson. Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to About the Exhibit the rise of astrophysics. Cambridge University Press, 1989. This exhibition was made possible by generous support from Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York: Mr. & Mrs. James B. Hebenstreit and Mrs. Lathrop M. Gates. Columbia University Press, 1941. 8 vols.

Toomer, G. J., transl. Ptolemy’s Almagest. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984. Thinking Outside the Sphere at the Linda Hall Library Van Helden, Albert. Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimensions from Aristarchus to Halley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Exhibition Credits

Van Helden, Albert. “Guericke, Otto von.” Galileo Project. Rice University. 1995. Web. 2009. http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/guericke.html This ecatalog was written and prepared by Cynthia J. Rogers, Curator.

Van Nouhuys, Tabbitta. The age of two-faced Janus: the Comets of 1577 and Exhibit advisors were William B. Ashworth, Jr. and Bruce Bradley. 1618. Leiden: Brill, 1998. 85. Web (Google Books). The exhibit was prepared and installed at the Linda Hall Library by Bruce Bradley

Volk, O. “Remarks about the History of Celestial Mechanics.” Celestial and Nancy Officer. Mechanics 2. 3 (1970): 431. Graphic elements for the exhibit web site, the exhibition panels, the Gallery Guide

and other print materials were designed by Nancy V. Green with Jon Rollins. Webb, Stephen. Measuring the Universe: the Cosmological Distance Ladder. Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing, 1999. Images for the exhibition were digitized by Nancy V. Green, Jon Rollins, and Sally

Crosson of the Digital Projects Department. Whitrow, G.J. “Kant and the Extragalactic Nebulae.” Colloquium on Historical Aspects of Astronomy. University of Exeter, 1966. 50-55.

Wright, Thomas. An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe. 1750. Facsimile reprint. Ed. Michael A. Hoskin. London: Macdonald and Co., 1971.

Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.

Youschkevitch, A. P. “Euler, Leonhard.” Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.

Aegidius Strauch. Astrognosia, 1659.

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