Buridan

I think it would be more wise of you to do as Lafcadio insist, quite simply to do a lot more reading in this field. Your ignorance about this quote reveal that you are basing your case on googling and not on any deeper studies.

What Lafcadio was mentioning was the well known case that this is
not originally by Newton

Rather it is at least as old as from "The Metalogicon" written by John of Salisbury in 1159.

It would be wise of you to refrain from making such mistakes. Not to mention worsening your case even more by ridiculising others for their "error".

Lafcadio

two more additions.

Buridan, your site mistakes 11th century for 12th. "Google quality"

I was a bit into rush to say about Hooke. It seems it was in a letter from Netwon to Hooke, but it seems my memory played tricks on me

Buridan

Indeed, "11th century monk named John of Salisbury"

Ciao:Cheeky:

Boro Nut

You know, that's a really novel approach, but I'm afraid I definitely remember seeing some when I was a kid.

Boro Nut

spin

Yes, you're correct. My bad.

NOGO

Quite true but there is more.

Tycho encouraged Kepler to proceed from the data to the theory as opposed to trying to fit the data to a preconceived notion which is what Kepler was doing with his five shapes of antiquity.

If it weren't for Tycho's influence and data Kepler would have wasted his life working on a bad idea because he believed it was inspired from God.

Bobinius

There is something to be understood: your claim was false. I have already shown that Kepler was driven by Greek ideas, Pythagoras and Platonic/neo-platonic ones in his metaphysical and mystical approach on the study of Nature. Also, his mathematical thought was firmly rooted in Euclidian Geometry, and he used Archimedes idea of calculating the area of the circle in his study of the orbits. It is clear as daylight that you intended to use 'aristotelian', it is no use to persist in defending that verse.

I already did. Read again above. Your sketched Straw Man here, implying that he derived the three laws from Pythagorean or neoplatonic theological ideas is pathetic. I am not talking about a mathematical process, but about his basis of reasearch, the grounds on which he approached the study of nature.

This is your oversimplification of the problem. So to preffer Aristarchus over Aristotle was scientific? To preffer the Copernican over the Ptolemeyc model without any empirical evidence (which Kepler and Galileo did) is scientific?

It seems you need some explanation on the problem. It was crucial for Kepler to rely on Tycho's observations in order to develop his laws.

1. Tycho had probably the best observations made with the naked eye. He had an enormous amount of data, collected over 20 years, mainly in Denmark, for Kepler to work with. In fact, this was the reason Tycho asked Kepler to come to Prague: he needed a mathematician (and Kepler was given the title Imperial Mathematician there), an assistent to work with his data in order to determine the orbits. Kepler arrived there in 1600, Tycho gave him the task of studyin the orbit of Mars. Tycho died in 1601, Kepler published Astronomia Nova in 1609. He was busy working on the mathematics, not observations.

2. The fact that Kepler relied on Tycho for his analysis is clearly shown by the key decision that Kepler made: to dismiss the error in the orbital prediction of only 8 minutes of arc!! as acceptable, as an error of observation. Tycho assured him that his observations were highly accurate, in an error limit of onyl 5 minutes of arc. If it wasn't for this decision, Kepler would not have started looking for an orbit of Mars that would fit Tycho limit of error.

3. In summa, only the fact that he trusted Tycho's observations more than the classical theory took him to the laws. Of course, this trust was not empirical or scientific (he could not have known if Tycho was not actually mistaken with 3 minutes of arc), but led him to the correct formulas.

Straw man Straw man. :snooze: If you can't say properly what you want, stop throwing assertions around. 'I was meaning this and that', in order not to admit you are wrong.

Yes, I was only aware of Newton. My mistake.

Is always nice to see the hasty generalisations, but coming from you it's no surprise. Knowing that Bernard the Chartre used it before is indeed a fabulous piece of knowledge. My lack of it shows my ignorance of the whole hisory of western thought or science. And you are of course correct in everything you say because Bernard said it first. :rolling:

<edit>
I read his work, but still you are providing no argument. As usual.

Really? You managed to read it? No effects I see. What was the crazy stuff Einstein said again? Browse slowly and look for something.

Just a hit point for those weak in spirit: The World As I See It is not a treatise about physics.

I knew that this was more intellectually challenging than remembering a quote. And he did not use the observations made at Tubingen. Get over it.

Again: How did he arrived at his laws 'scientifically'?

I already gave you the quote in which he inspired from the thinking of another Greek, Archimedes with the triangles. Your repetition of it only makes me wonder if you actually read Astronomia Nova or understood it.

The first thing when trying to compose the orbital pathways of the planets is that you are not given anything except the observations on the celestial sphere. Nothing tells you which model is to assumed, the Earth in the center, Mars or the Sun. Nothing. So, in order to begin, you have to start with the general presumption of the geometry of the system. It is obvious that if Kepler did not preffer the Copernican system, it would have been impossible to formulate the laws.

What made him lean towards the Copernican system was a pure metaphysical motivation: the neoplatonic and Pythagorean idea of God expressing harmony in his creation, in the form of some numerical or geometrical proportions. What made him preffer the Copernican system over Ptolemeus' or Tycho's systems was geometrical harmony. He knew there were 6 planets and he tried to find a reason (why did God made them so) for the configuration with the sun in the center and the 6 planets around. So, his brilliant 'scientific' idea came from the Greek world: the 5 perfect solids. Thru a process of concentric circumscription he inserted the spheres and the solids succesively. His model predicted the distances pretty accurately, and this did not change when he inserted Tycho's data too.

Now, he had the presumption of the Copernican model based on neoplatonic/pythagorean grounds.

He had in mind his reasoning from the Mysterium, in order to explain why the planets moved slower when further from the sun: one reason was greater distance, and the fact that the 'soul' of the Sun had less power for moving the planets as the distance grew. The planets were move by the spiritual rays of the Sun. He found that the orbits were in the same plane with the Sun, a confirmation of this. He first calculated the relation between the distance from the sun and the orbit of the Earth. He observed that at the apses, the speed varies inversely with the d from the sun. He generalises this to the whole orbit (a wrong assumption, remember that it was still a circle). After this he approximates the formula with the areas - the Second Law. This Law was consistent with Tycho's data only because Earth's orbit is very close to circular!

Then comes the orbit of Mars. He tries a circular orbit. The key aspect here: he obtaines a 8 min of arc error, which he finds unacceptable, relying on Tycho. This is crucial. After he tries the same move with Mars as he did with the Earth, the results are messed up - we know that Mars has a much more eccentric orbit than the Earth. He draws different circles at different points of Mars' position. They are different, so he aprroximates the orbit by drawing an oval, and then an ellipse with the same axis as the oval. He did this in order to be able to use Archimedes method of areas applied to ellipses. After inscribing this ellipse in the original circle he coincidently obtained the same error for the circle and for the ellipse (one in excess, one in minus)- around 0.0004: this is very important, because this makes him decide to draw an intermediate figure, another ellipse. Which led him to the First Law.

So, there is actually no method for finding the orbits. What he did with the second law is to fit his metaphysical assumptions into the data, a process that proved successfully, and was able to make pretty accurate predictions - See above the perfect solids. He performed a long process of trial and error, and with a chance of 'divine intervention' he obtained that relation between the circle and the ellipse. There is no systematic way in which he arrived there. In what sense were they scientific then? Based on observations were also the Ptolemeyc ones. His neoplatonic harmonious solids too. They too made predictions. Things are not simple, and the metaphysical grounds on which he arrived here complicate things even more.

Speak for yourself. Read Cena de la Cerneri. It's not a T shirt.

Good. Then what you are attacking is a straw man. I never claimed that Bruno was a scientist.

And magic was the science we talk about in the 1st century? You don't want to face the problems of demarcation, and take refuge in renaissantist taxonomy. It won't make the problem go away.

The thing that is erroneous to do is to brake the thinking of a man into convenient parts and to use Confirmation Bias in order to select what was confirmed later (future evidence maestro?). The metaphysical, neoplatonic and Pythagorean grounds that drove him cannot be ignored. After all, this led him to exceptional discoveries. I am not saying that this invalidates the fact that he advocated empirical observation and testing of hypotheses, but his results are not owed to some pure, idealised and mysterious scientific method.

Unfortunately, I left that out because you already knew it. But you missed the first proposition.

And astronomy is not rejected, but highly praised, as is appropriate. ]Now, this Astrology is a foolish daughter (as I wrote in my book de Stella Cap. XII ). But dear Lord, what would happen to her mother, the highly reasonable Astronomy, if she did not have this foolish daughter. The world, after all, is much more foolish, indeed is so foolish, that this old sensible mother, Astronomy, is talked into things and lied to as a result of her daughter's foolish pranks...

He is dismissing the common astrology, which he aslo used to make money. He calls the other one, his, an 'art'. See my quotes above. For further details, read Concerning The More Certain Fundamentals of Astrology.

You don't understand even the made up fallacies you use: it is about evidence that will come and will support your point of view. How this applies here, only you know. You probably are unaware of Kepler's ideas about the attraction of bodies. Whatever.

It wasn't that nova. I am talking about Kepler's Star, observed in 1604. He even had a small book about it. Comparing the two and extracting some wonderfull astrological significances from his observation.

Of course.

I am not learning from you anything, except to admire your skill at Personal Attacks and Ad Hominems. Your advices are not a substitute for arguments: this rudeness is not making you correct.

Appeal To Authority is always difficult for people below median intelligence to understand.

Appeal To Authority is not always fallacious. It is fallacious only 1 . when the authority refferd to is not an authority on the subject debated; 2. when there is disagreement between specialized authorities on that matter 3. the authority was in a circumstance that made him subject to error.

What kind of fallacy is the Argument from the Future you quoted? What type: fallacy of relevance, appeal to motive, non sequitur?

Everyone? Meaning if you are in a room with IDiots that think that Irreducible complexity is proven, you should accept it? Great.

Bobinius

Exactly. The accent of reforming Astronomy came from Tycho, exemplified by his lifetime work of aquiring the best possible observations, and it underlined the importance of empirical observations in science. And if it wasn't for Tycho's accuracy, Kepler could have accepted the 8 min difference as a measurement error, instead as a problem with the theory, and Mars' orbit would have remained circular.

Lafcadio

You still dare to show up? :devil3:

You're dead wrong. To determine a non-circle area with triangle areas (he used a primitive form of calculus called by him "the calculus of indivisibles") it's nor Archimedean, nor Greek (though bears a resemblance). Showing that he used Euclidian elements (wtf, we even use them today) it clearly misses the point and it's a strawman.


You did not. You have not a clue about Kepler's work and slowly enlighten yourself from Google. It will take a while until you'll be able to deal with this conversation.
Have you heard of a guy called Roger Bacon? Have you heard of something called "natural philosophy"? Do you know something about those guys believing the universe is ruled by physical laws? Do these homeworks, and you'll find what it's the basis of research.

Your rhetoric only uncoveres the strawmen you have.
As for your question to take the observed data, propose a model, create a theory and then to verify it and make predictions with it, it's scientific.

It was crucial for his accuracy (as Tycho's observations are reknown even today for their accuracy), but the method remains the same. Probably the ellipses would have had other equations, probably the other laws would have had other forms, but a potential different set of input data is not conflicting with the methodology. And as long as you don't understand that the difference between science and other types of knowledge is in method, you dont' understand anything in this discussion.

Though I agree with most you said in 1, 2 and 3 this is misleading and false.
Before he was Tycho's assistent he had observations on his own. Once he got the huge database from Tycho and until he published his works, of course his main focus was the model. Even today, it's not always the same scientist the one that gathers data and the one that models it. But Kepler performed also other observations during his modelling, though we know his work is mainly based on Tycho's observations. If you've read Kepler (and again you prove you didn't, nor even a good brief on his works) he said that he performed further observations to find other points to confirm his orbits.
It's fair to emphasize that his data are mostly inherited from Brahe, but it's unfair to claim (or to mention not that) he wasn't observing or that the observation he made were totally irrelevant for his findings.

Don't be foolish. Kepler's ellipse is a precise concept, which hold subconcepts like "focus" which the Greek ellipse (or the Egyptian hieroglyph ) does not have. Don't confuse a mathematical well-described ellipse with a tilted circle.
I for one know what I'm thinking when I say "ellipse" in a discussion about 17th century astronomy. If you think of fluffy angels it's not my strawman, but your incapacity of understanding.

Your mistake??? You arrogantly told me I have no idea what I'm talking about and you googled for a poor encyclopaedia entry to back up your point. You proved that your argumentation has two ingredients: errors and ego.

I know my English is bad but your understanding is terrible. I haven't held the fallacious reasoning you show above, I just pointed you the field you should study to find such informations. If you're satisfied with Google and encyclopaedias, I can't help, but following this track you will be prone to such mistakes from now on, as you did until now. If you take this as a personal offense, it makes the things even worse for you.

<edit>
You haven't read it.

So you haven't read this book, either. Come on, this is an easy one

Nor Kepler was talking about physics when he talked about astrology, but you didn't make that difference for him. You cared about showing that a scientist (natural philosopher) can hold unscientific views. Surely they can. So did Kepler, so did Newton, so did Einstein. It's however true that in Kepler's time the difference between scientific and not-scientific was considerably smaller (often one could argue both with physical and metaphysical arguments).

Argument from ignorance.

You were told. Improve your reading skills. Or better, try to read at least some briefs on his works and see what exactly he did.

You have not read Kepler. Otherwise you'd have knew of his calculus. Your knowledge of mathematics is also poor. Otherwise you'd knew that to calculate the area of a circle using Archimede's method and calculate the area of an ellipse like Kepler did there are some significant differences.


So are the models in science today. It seems you're trying to explain the forming of a hypothesis.

That you don't know. All we know is that he took the data and abandoned even his preconceptions (and the preconceptions of his time) in order to find the correct shapes of the orbits.

Ignorant bla bla = lots of post hocs and non sequiturs. Just for a thought exercise - to correctly circumscribe the perfect solids you need spheres not ellipsoids :Cheeky:
When Kepler used his mathematical skills to model the observations he obviously abandoned the perfect solids theory. He even admits it (perhaps with bitterness, we can speculate and talk about his wishful thinking, but again, that can't strip him of his fair scientific attitude he proved).
The 5 solids theory you put so much emphasis is published in a pre-1600 book, the Mysterium which you also mention. It was his way to explain the apparent arbitrary distances from heliocentric model. When later he found his own laws, you can imagine, this explanation would no longer work.
What's even more interesting, that in the same book where he published the 5 solids theory he questioned both Ptolemeic and Heliocentric systems from mathematical modeling point of view. So this phantasmagoric connection between the 5 solid theory and its final mathematical model over Brahe's and his data fails to be supported by evidence.

Ad nauseam, non sequitur, post hoc and false. You may say that he liked this model for being able to match it with his theological views. Though you have no proof if his theological views were influenced by his findings or otherwise. What's certain is that when he defeneded Copernican view (unusual for his time, though the model had some impact as a hypothetical alternative) he defended both on physical and metaphysical grounds. He placed sun in the center because of its heat as source of energy and motion. He sometimes argued that driving force could be magnetism.

Dude, between Mysterium and his Laws there are many years. You're making a mess from his entire life and work, not to say about your clumsy interpretations (yours or from the article you got this brief). You probably missed when Kepler even proposed heat or magnetism to explain the interaction between Sun and planets.

I don't know what's your source, but it's deadly wrong on several accounts.
First, the orbit of Mars was calculated together with Earth's orbit (the one which you refered to in a paragraph above). Kepler took in account that he observed from Earth. He had three points - Sun, Earth, Mars to use when detecting positions in space and drawing orbits.
Second, the ellipse doesn't come from successive circles as you imagine. The ellipses came from the errors he found and from the unwillingness to use epicycles or other interactions but the interactions he assumed between planets and Sun. To draw an ellipse it's not that complicated as you think - you need only two measurements - for each axis.
Third, Archimede's method does not work for ellipses.
Fourth, First Law comes indeed from an coincidence, but that it's of an angular measurement Kepler made, which shown that Sun it's indeed in one of the ellipse's focuses. Otherwise First Law would have been "planets move on elliptical orbits around the Sun".

You're wrong as you were shown above. In that googled quote he only says that between an ellipse and a circle, the intermediary figure is also an ellipse which is correct.
If you whine that he actually did 'trial and error' method to get the best shape for his actual data, I might remind you that's nothing unscientific in that. We're talking about forming the hypothesis, you can perform any number of trials to create a valid model.

The subtleties of human language - today's lesson is parody. Student Bobinius, you have a F.

He, he the strawman is yours. Did I say you claim Bruno is a scientist?
I just pointed out your ad nauseam and the futility of a sentence which is accepted by everyone who wrote in this thread.

What??? Renaissantist taxonomy? :rolling:
The only problem is your misunderstanding. I repeatedly pointed out why Kepler is scientific. It seems you have problems with some broad assumptions Kepler made (not that to make assumptions to form a hypothesis is unscientific) and possibly with the modest quality of the peer-review, that's why I felt to make a difference. Though the difference mostly emphasizes that a scientist of those times used both physical and metaphysical arguments, which it seems is one of your problems against Kepler.

Straw man. I have not refered post-Keplerian finds in astronomy. As for your claimed drive there's a fallacy which is called post hoc. I already addressed this neoplatonism - Kepler's laws connection above and I expect you to give a counterargument there. Until you won't prove the causality, this entire point you made here it's fallacious.

I wonder if you really know what scientific method is. No one questioned why Einstein chose a 4D model to back up his theories. It was scientific that he built his hypothesis to justify some data and then confronted it against data to test it.

Ad nauseam. It compares the astrology he practices with astronomy, the thing which I said and you keep opposing. I see no other astrology here. There's no connection between this paragraph and the other quote talking about "genuine astrology" other than your fallacious post hoc.
You previously told me "Kepler was talking like that about the Astrology performed by the idiots of his days" though from the quote it's obvious that he talks about the astrology performed by a mathematician like himself (from the same quote, but still stripped by you, with the same selective bias: "The mathematician's pay would be so low, that the mother would starve, if the daughter did not earn anything"). Now if you believe the idiots of his days were the mathematicians you clearly have no idea about Kepler's beliefs.

I haven't quoted Kepler to be a scientist for he proposing magnetism (though it's a reasonable, naturalistic hypothesis) to keep his solar system working. Nor for him proposing other mystical arguments to keep his solar system together. I just described his work to create his three laws (and not only, his optics also worth mentioning) as proving a naturalistic, scientific attitude. If anyone argues about Bruno to advocate science must do it within his time, similarily as we talk about Kepler.

Oh, that's the year I asked a bit earlier. I understand now what you mean, but as I shown above you're wrong about his observations. He made his own observations on Mars and other bodies.


As I said I'm not teaching you, I don't see why would you learn from me anything. As for rudeness, you're no angel. From a guy that makes his entrance in this thread insulting one of the posters you won't receive anything better from me until you'll settle down your tone.


Please prove the site you quoted is an authority in "fallacy" subject. You failed until now and while you'll keep failing you just did an appeal to authority, like all who quote that site

I offered you a link and a description. If you cannot understand the errors being made, what can I do more?
What type of fallacy is? Well, from what you've listed it's a non sequitur and a fallacy of irrelevance.

If your world is reduced to a room I only can pity you.

Bede

If anyone is still interested, I've blogged on the lightning conductor myth here.