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Archive 1Archive 2

Heliocentricism?

There's been a bit of edit conflict over the alternative word heliocentricism. Here are a few relevant points:

Google search:

  • 54,900 for heliocentrism.
  • 14,700 for heliocentricism.

Oxford English Dictionary (online version):

  • Heliocentrism does not appear as an entry, but appears in the definition of "Kuhnian" and in a 1993 quotation under "reconciliation."
  • Heliocentricism appears as a derived entry under "heliocentric", although only with nineteenth-century citations, and in an 1885 quotation under "ultramontanist".

Heliocentricism seems to be an acceptable variant, although current usage (Google) shows heliocentrism as the dominant form. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:05, 15 January 2010 (UTC); edited 03:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think there is sufficient support in authoritative dictionaries for "heliocentricism" to be mentioned in the article as an acceptable variant—with a citation to the OED or Shorter OED. I have checked a few other dictionaries, most of which don't list either of the words "heliocentricism" or "heliocentrism". The same goes for the corresponding words "geocentrism" and "geocentricism". Here are the results of my searches:
  • OED, Second Edition, 1989: "Heliocentricism" and "geocentricism" are listed but neither "heliocentrism" nor "geocentrism" are (confirming Srteve McCluskey's findings).
  • Shorter OED, 11th edition, 2007: "Heliocentricism" and "geocentrism" are listed but neither "heliocentrism" nor "geocentricism" are (and, yes, I have typed that correctly).
  • Concise OED, 2006: "Geocentrism" is listed but none of "geocentricism", "heliocentrism" or "heliocentricism" are.
  • Concise Oxford American Dictionary, 2006: As for concise OED.
None of the other dictionaries I consulted (Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English, Collins Australian English Dictionary, Chambers Dictionary) listed any of the four words.
I don't believe the sources currently cited for the use of "heliocentricism" are adequate, but they can (and should) simply be replaced with a reference to the OED or Shorter OED.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 05:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good, I only have access to the (unfree access) online OED. Could you provide the citations. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Maragha School and Heliocentrism?

The lengthy discussion of the Maragha school's geocentric models doesn't seem appropriate to an article on heliocentrism. Although there are well-documented technical similarities between their equantless geometric models and the equantless model of Copernicus, none of the texts showing mathematical influence indicate any connection with Copernicus's advocacy of heliocentricism. Emphasizing that similarity in an article on heliocentism--even with all the disclaimers in the article--leaves the unsupportable suggestion that Copernicus's heliocentrism is in someway related to the work of the Maragha school. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 00:57, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

The Tusi couple, as a geometric form, probably used by Copernicus, is relevant.IAC-62 (talk) 12:31, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
The passage that I flagged as needing a citation: Ibn al-Shatir "having demonstrated trigonometrically that the Earth was not the exact center of the universe." is explicitly contradicted by Nidhal Guessoum in the Observatory article cited (p. 238), that "the modifications he brought to Ptolemy's model aimed at making it more strictly geocentric." Guessoum's article (he teaches in the UAE) seems a rather sane corrective to some of the more extreme claims of Islamic contributions to heliocentrism. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:21, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I was bold and removed completely the latest additions of Jagged who unfortunately has build up a habit of throwing incoherent and offtopical things into articles. I don't think it should the job of two, three other editors to constantly agonize over such enigmatic edits, especially when they are copy and pasted all over Wiki with little regard to the specific structure of the respective articles. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:31, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree with both you guys here. The whole paragraph on the Maragha observatory has little relevance to this article. The first sentence "At the Maragha observatory, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (b. 1201) resolved significant problems in the Ptolemaic system by developing the Tusi-couple as an alternative to the physically problematic equant introduced by Ptolemy.", in particular, seems more like it belongs to Geocentric model than here. Come to think of it, with the exception of the paragraph on Biruni, there is little else that is relevant. Regarding GPM's other point, on low importance articles I am happy to let things slide, but on high importance articles such as this one, a higher standard is needed. Athenean (talk) 06:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I consider the last edit by Gun Powder Ma unacceptably sweeping. I have twice found Jagged citing sources incorrectly, once the Gill article and most particularly the Covington Aramco journal article, which I read through three times to make sure. The last edit, for example, sweepingly removes the Chaldean nationality of Seleucus, insisted on by Jagged, which is accurate. IAC-62 (talk) 15:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Please feel free to add again the material which you think accurately reflects scholarly sources. On Seleucos, though, I'd like to make a closer check. If he published his works in Greek, then there is every reason to consider him a Hellenistic astronomer irrespective of his ethnic background (to use a modern term for lack of a better one). PS: That he published in cuniform is very suspect, since, from the top of my head, cuneiform actually had died out around the same time or even earlier. But I'll check it. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
He was in a way both, Babylonian and Greek, although the little we know of his works may place him more in the Greek astronomical traditions. After all, despite Strabo's designation as "Chaldean", he was said to follow Aristarchus, not any Babylonian forerunner. In a way the whole point is moot, see now Seleucus of Seleucia for an attempt to harmonize the two strands of his personality. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Gunpowder has a bad habit of reverting every single edit made by a user he dislikes instead of actually reverting the actual content he disagrees with. Which of my additions did he find irrelevant to the article? The part about Seleucus' work being available in Arabic? Or the part about several Muslim scholars disputing the Earth's immobility and centrality in the universe? The only things he has said he disagrees with is the Maragha-Copernican connection, which is not something I recently added, but has been in this article for a long time now. If anything, my recent edits had actually shortened the Maragha-Copernicus connection, but for some reason Gunpowder thinks I'm trying to extend it and thus sees it fit to revert all of my edits altogether, regardless of their relevance. I can only hope that Gunpowder ceases from making such sweeping edits in future. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 20:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Could it have something to do with the inventiveness of many of your 'contributions' and the careless way you drop little-understood references like bombs over articles with little regard to both contents and structure? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Article Introduction

Shouldn't it be made clearer in the introduction that heliocentrism is superseded, much as geocentrism is? I mean, its obvious, that the sun is not "stationary and at the center of the universe." but I don't think this means that this should be mentioned only at the very end of the article. Janfrie1988 (talk) 19:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Brethren of Purity again

The claim that the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity contains a description of a heliocentric cosmological system is flatly contradicted by the foremost academic authority on the subject (see Talk:Heliocentrism/Archive 1#Brotherhood of purity). The article's current claim that "some verses have been interpreted as implying a heliocentric model" is cited solely to the opinion of a single writer of Theosophical tracts who appears to have no qualifications or reputation as a historian. I am therefore removing this material as a violation of Wikipedia's policies on neutral point-of-view and undue weight.
—David Wilson (talk · cont) 18:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's good to see that you also notified the original creator of that passage who is not noted for particularly caring for what happens on talk pages. ;-)Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

al-Balkhi

I have removed the following text from the article because the reference cited does not support it.

"Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (787-886) developed a planetary model which can be interpreted as a heliocentric model. This is due to his orbital revolutions of the planets being given as heliocentric revolutions rather than geocentric revolutions. His work on planetary theory has not survived, but his astronomical data were later recorded by al-Hashimi and Biruni.[balkhiref 1]"
Reference
1. ^ Bartel Leendert van der Waerden (1987). "The Heliocentric System in Greek, Persian and Hindu Astronomy", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 500 (1), 525–545 [534–537].

Nowhere in the cited reference does van der Waerden say or imply that al-Balkhi "developed a planetary model which can be interpreted as heliocentric." What he does is conjecture that the Greek astronomer Seleucus turned Aristarchus's rudimentary heliocentric theory into a fully-fledged predictive system by determining the necessary constants and developing methods of calculating planetary positions. He further argues that Aryabhata's presentation of one of his own theories (which van der Waerden explicitly says was not heliocentric) inherited traces of the originally heliocentric theory through his reliance on astronomical tables or an astronomical treatise which has now been lost, and that similar traces can be found in the system described by al-Biruni and al-Sijzi and attributed by them to al-Balkhi.--Knight1993 (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

helocentric model: Why we believe this!

We believe this because if we were where the sun is and the sun where we are then becausethe sun has more mass the sun would pull us into itself!

Sorry thats the only reason I know. Hope it helps... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.174.50 (talk) 08:45, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, nowadays we accept neither heliocentrism, nor geocentrism, for the very question of the center in the infinite universe is meaningless. The only sense in which heliocentrism can be said to be accepted nowadays is that the Sun is the centre of the solar system. Period. But this is not the heliocentrism that Copernicus or Kepler had in mind. In fact, when the Cartesian natural philosophy overthrew that of Aristotle, geocentrism was replaced not by heliocentrism, strictly speaking, but by the conception of heliocentric solar system in an infinite universe. Perhaps this may be mentioned in the article. Jackbars (talk) 01:29, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

The following century

The phrase "the following century" gives the impression that Kepler's work was confined to the 17th. century. He was doing some admittedly not very scientific work in the 16th. century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.1.196 (talk) 08:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Much of Kepler's work that was published in the 17th. century was far from scientific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.157.45 (talk) 17:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
Kepler was born in 1571 and was making an observation at the age of six. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.157.45 (talk) 17:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
Kepler was publishing some work, which he considered to be scientific, in 1596. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.60.250 (talk) 15:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Elliptical orbits in Indian astronomy

The article incorrectly claims Nilakantha´s model had elliptical orbits. This is a misinterpretation (or something worse) of the source, which never claims such a thing. I have no access to it, but I read a review, which clearly states his model didn´t have elliptical orbits. Therefore, the information will be removed immediately.--Knight1993 (talk) 21:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Be BoldJ8079s (talk) 03:10, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Mathematical and philosophical considerations

After reading this article several times, I realise it is unfair towards the greek accomplishments, putting them in the "philosophical" category, while the indian and muslim theories, which were farther form the truth because they were not heliocentric, fall into the "mathemarical" category. The theories of Aristarchus and Seleucus and indeed as mathematical as the others, and heliocentric as well. They deserve more notoriety than geocentric theories.--Knight1993 (talk) 19:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Category:Obsolete scientific theories

How does this fit this category? 75.118.171.224 (talk) 15:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Have a look at the section The view of modern science. Chris55 (talk) 18:04, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Van der Waerden's theories

Until I just now amended it, the article's lead had said

"Aryabhata's (476-550) propositions in his Aryabhatiya have been interpreted as those of a heliocentric model, ..."

with citations to works by Bartel van der Waerden. This is a blatant misrepresentation of those sources, Nowhere in them does van der Waerden say that any propositions of Aryabhata's could be "interpreted as those of a heliocentric model". Van der Waerden's thesis was that Seleucus of Seleucia had developed Aristarchus's model into a fully-blown predictive system like Copernicus's, and that traces of this sytem—in the form of numerical parameters and some geometrical features—found their way into later Indian and Arabic astronomical systems, including Aryabhata's. But van der Waerden did not claim that these later systems could themselves be interpreted as heliocentric.

I have consequently removed this erroneous claim from the article.
David Wilson (talk • cont) 12:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC).

David, that claim is repeated in the Indian astronomy section and it's now missing the two references. I haven't seen those citations so can't make any judgement: but either replace the references or remove the sentence. Chris55 (talk) 12:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for picking that up. I have now removed the misrepresentations of van der Waerden's work from that section. This particular furphy appeared as a consequence of the activities canvassed in this Rfc, so there may well be other articles where it occurs.
David Wilson (talk • cont) 13:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
I was the editor who felt the said claim made in a sub-section deserved a mention in the article's lead. If the claim is false then editors should thank me for putting the spotlight on it. I am not even a beginner on astronomy or mathematics so there is not much I can contribute to the discussion. I hope that David knows what he is doing. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
One comment on van der Waerden here says "Some commentators, most notably van der Waerden, have however argued in favor of an underlying ancient Greek heliocentric basis, of which the Indians were unaware." This is a bit subtle and I suspect the paper was cited without being read as the title is much more suggestive. Though Aryabhata accepted the rotation of the earth, unlike Ptolemy, he didn't take the big leap to acknowledge it also moves. The same paper is cited in the Aryabhata article. Chris55 (talk) 17:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Yogesh Khandke wrote:
"I was the editor who felt the said claim made in a sub-section deserved a mention in the article's lead. If the claim is false then editors should thank me for putting the spotlight on it."
That's exactly right. The only reason I noticed the passage was because it immediately followed the one I was editing at the time.
" I hope that David knows what he is doing."
Well, I'm not an astronomer either, nor a historian of any stripe (unless you count amateurs). I do, however, understand all the relevant mathematics, as well as enough modern and ancient astronomy to follow and check it. I read the English version of the cited paper of van der Waerden's completely, about 10 months ago—shortly before writing this. You may notice that in his reply to that comment of mine Steve McCluskey—who is a professional historian of science—has agreed with me.
David Wilson (talk • cont) 00:01, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
David, (1)If the statement "I hope that David knows what he is doing" is too strong or rude, please go ahead and strike it out to whatever is more acceptable and polite. (2)However that statement is a reaction to comment made by you that Aryabhatta's relation to heliocentrism is based on a rumour - furphy, which started as a result of an interpretation of Waerden's work and connected it to user:Jagged 85 and his editing and the action taken against him. I hope that you are sure about this. I did a Google search using the terms "heliocentric Aryahhatta" and then "Waerden Aryabhatta". (I cannot give urls because my mouse's right click button has suddenly refused to function) The first gave about 4400 results and the second about 440. One small bio (not a scholarly source) of Arybhatta informs "Āryabhata claims that the Earth turns on its own axis and some elements of his planetary epicyclic models rotate at the same speed as the motion of the planet around the Sun. This has suggested to some interpreters that Āryabhata's calculations were based on an underlying heliocentric model in which the planets orbit the Sun. A detailed rebuttal to this heliocentric interpretation is in a review which describes B. L. van der Waerden's book as "show[ing] a complete misunderstanding of Indian planetary theory [that] is flatly contradicted by every word of Āryabhata's description," although some concede that Āryabhata's system stems from an earlier heliocentric model of which he was unaware. It has even been claimed that he considered the planet's paths to be elliptical, although no primary evidence for this has been cited. Though Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century BC) and sometimes Heraclides of Pontus (4th century BC) are usually credited with knowing the heliocentric theory, the version of Greek astronomy known in ancient India, Paulisa Siddhanta (possibly by a Paul of Alexandria) makes no reference to a Heliocentric theory." That is it responds to the critical review of Waerden's work, and speculates that the Greek astronomy available to Indian's during Aryabhatta's times was Paulisa Siddhanta (Sanskrit for Paul's theories ) (3)Aryabhatta's heliocentrism theories have been mentioned by such ones as Abdul Kalam, scientist former Indian president who is called as father of India's missile programme. My point is that to call it all a furphy is a little premature perhaps.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:54, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Further comment of Yogesh Khandke's transferred below to facilitate continuity of conversation.
David Wilson (talk • cont) 06:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) No, I don't consider anything you wrote as being rude or "too strong".
The term "furphy" in my comment above wasn't referring to the claim that Aryabhata's system could be interpreted as heliocentric, but to the claim that van der Waerden said that it could be so interpreted in the references cited in the article. As I said above, I have read the English version of those references, and I can assure you that the latter claim is unequivocally false. Somewhere in the paper, van der Waerden states explicitly that Aryabhata's system was not heliocentric. I'll see if I can dig out my copy of the paper and provide you with an exact quotation.
"This has suggested to some interpreters that Āryabhata's calculations were based on an underlying heliocentric model in which the planets orbit the Sun."
That statement is quite correct, at least as far as Van der Waerden is concerned. He does conjecture that Aryabhata's system was based on some underlying heliocentric system, now lost. But this is not at all the same thing as saying Aryabhata's own system could itself be interpreted as being heliocentric. Van der Waerden's paper makes it absolutely clear that Aryabhata's system is quite distinct from the conjectured heliocentric one on which it was supposedly based. What is not at all clear from van der Waerden's paper is whether he thought that Aryabhata had direct access to this supposedly underlying heliocentric system (he certainly presents no evidence or arguments to that effect), or whether he thought Aryabhata's system had merely inherited its relevant features through a chain of other non-heliocentric antecedents.
David Wilson (talk • cont) 06:07, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
I understand that your comment is that Waerden's work cannot be used to connect heliocentrism to Aryabhatta, perhaps some one could use other works to make this claim where there isn't such ambiguity, because the connection seems to be there.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:53, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
David this is with reference to Dr. Duke's comments, contained in the paper you have shared above, "While the oldest texts we have that contain full planetary models are thought to originate in India somewhere in 400-500 AD..." could you explain what models is Dr. Duke referring to?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 05:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
I presume you're referring to this paper, which was linked to by Chris55, not me. By "oldest texts" I can only assume that Duke is referring to the surviving physical copies of the relevant manuscripts, since Ptolemy certainly wrote the Almagest well before 400AD. As for the models contained in those texts, I know nothing at all about them beyond the little that Duke reveals in the paper.
David Wilson (talk • cont) 06:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
I should apologise for being careless. Perhaps Chris could comment on whether the planetary model mentioned is heliocentrism?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:53, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I very much doubt whether Duke thought the models he referred to in his paper were heliocentric. Otherwise he would hardly have written "the astronomy in the texts is, on the whole, considerably less developed than we find in the Almagest", or referred to those texts a little later as "this heap of more primitive astronomy" (I.e. more primitive than the astronomy of the Almagest).
David Wilson (talk • cont) 07:54, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

My apologies, Yogesh and David. The pdf I referenced didn't include the quotation that I included, which is actually here. (You know how it is - you download a pdf and forget where it came from.) To respond to Yogesh's question about planetary models, the issue in these papers appears to be the source of the use of the equant in Indian models. One has to be careful about the word "planet" as we're so used to including the earth in that category, which very few philosophers did at that time. Astronomers were focussed on providing an explanation for the 'wandering stars'. But I'm grateful for the reference to Paulisa Siddhanta as I'd come across a reference to Siddhanta elsewhere and wasn't sure which one referred to this question. Like David, I'm not an astronomer. Chris55 (talk) 12:48, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
If either of you are interested, I have just stumbled across a copy of Walter Eugene Clark's 1930 English translation of The Aryabhatiya at the Internet Archive. On page 55 we find the following translation of one of the stanzas:
"Beneath the asterisms [i.e. the stars] are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, and beneath these is the Earth situated in the center of space like a hitching-post."
This seems to me to establish pretty conclusively that Aryabhata's system was geocentric and not heliocentric—which is indeed Clark's own conclusion, as well that of every other authoritative secondary source I have ever seen. On page 9 we find:
"In a yuga the revolutions of the Sun are 4,320,000, of the Moon 57,753,336, of the Earth eastward 1,582,237,500, ..."
The ratio of the number of the Earth's revolutions eastward in a yuga to the number of those of the Sun in the same period is 366.25868, a fairly good estimate of the number of sidereal days in a year, and its ratio to the number of revolutions of the Moon in the same period is 27.3965 27.39646469 a fairly very good estimate of the number of sidereal days in a sidereal month (the current estimate, according to Wikipedia, is 27.39646522). So it seems pretty obvious that Aryabhata has the Earth spinning on its axis at the centre of the Universe once per sidereal day, and the Sun and Moon revolving around it once per year and once per sidereal month respectively.
David Wilson (talk • cont) 16:15, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Gentlemen, I'm sorry, this stuff is really too heavy for me, I got to this article serendipitously, saw the sub-section which informed that Aryabhatta proposed the heliocentric nature of the solar system, and felt that this should be a part of the lead as it was supported with wp:RS, subsequently another editor who is considerably more informed considers that it is a mis-interpretation of the source, and so has removed the statements regarding Aryabhatta and heliocentrism. I misunderstood the reasons he gave for his editing, enquired and have received a satisfactory reply. I could translate Paulisa Siddhanta as Paul's theories not because I am well acquainted with Sanskrit, but because my mother tongue Marathi has many Sanskrit words, Siddhanta being one of them. Some one who understands, ancient and modern astronomy and mathematics, Sanskrit, Hindu Mathematics and Hindu astrology could perhaps be able to contribute constructively to the discussion, I am not the one. I am sorry Chris I shouldn't have asked the question, as I do not understand the answer. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
David, Thanks for pointing out Clark's translation of the Aryabhatiya. On p. 64 I found this nice passage that confirms the one you quoted:
6. The sphere of the Earth, being quite round, situated in the center of space, in the middle of the circle of asterisms, surrounded by the orbits of the planets, consists of water, earth, fire, and air.
Again, it's quite unambiguous and clearly reflects the standard (Greek?) geocentric model. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:55, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Kudos!! ... and Johannes Scotus Eriugena

Congratulations to the Wiki editors on an outstanding summary of an interesting historical issue. That the Earth orbits is one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever, and this article does a great job of summarizing some of the tentative pre-Copernicus steps.

Perhaps Johannes Scotus Eriugena should be mentioned; his De divisione naturae is alleged to postulate that at least four of the planets rotate around the Sun (though I don't see that at Wikipedia). Jamesdowallen (talk) 12:29, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's a reference: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2001JHA....32..281E It shows the quote from Eriugena's book, brief, arguably vague, citing Plato. Jamesdowallen (talk) 16:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


SEE ALSO: Return in the Geocentric solar system, from article of "Jutarnji list" (www.jutarnji.hr)

Comments under the popular article, at Croatian language:

http://www.jutarnji.hr/spektakularna-snimka-preleta-iss-a-preko-zemlje--pogledajte-sto-astronauti-gledaju-svaki-dan---/974883/

89.172.65.204 (talk) 03:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Jagged 85 cleanup

As some of you may be aware, following the RFC/U last year, there is now finally a serious Cleanup underway and it is a Herculean task. I know this article has always been attended to by quite a few attentive and knowledgeable users, so I'd like to ask you whether there are still any issues left from Jagged's editing. Below are all of Jagged 85's edits. Please check them and whatever is problematic or might only appear problematic should be removed immediately:

Following is a summary of above. Each item is a diff showing the result of several consecutive edits to the article by Jagged 85, in chronological order.

Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Though Jagged has many edits in this article, many have been modified/undone, as there have been several users active on this article (in contrast to some other articles). What needs to be done in terms of cleanup here, rather than going through the diffs one by one, is to check the references of the "Ancient India" and particularly the "Medieval Iranian and Islamic world" sections. The rest of the article should be ok Jagged-cleanup-wise. Athenean (talk) 05:56, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Has this been done by now? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Distinction between mathematical and philosophical models

I'm not sure this is needed. Besides both paragraphs being entirely unsourced and somewhat OR-ish, the distinction disrupts the flow of the article completely. It seems really odd to have two separate "Greek and Hellenistic world" sections, and a "Western Christendom" section in between them (even that refers to something that took place centuries later). I think it would be best to remove the distinction and just leave everything in chronological order. Athenean (talk) 06:07, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Irrelevant citation of Qu'ran

I have re-removed the following text from the article, since it would appear to have nothing whatever to do with heliocentrism.

"Surprisingly Quran mentioned 1432 Hijri years ago that the moon and the sun pursue their own courses. Each one swims along in its own orbit according to Law."

On the face of it, the reference to the the Sun swimming "along in it's own orbit" would appear to be clearly referring to a geocentric system, not a heliocentric one. I can see no justification whatever for including this text anywhere in the article, let alone in its lead.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 07:35, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree the entry has NO place in the article. Perhaps the article could mention (if it does not already) that the geocentric view was defended by both Xns & Muslims--JimWae (talk) 18:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Yajnavalkya

Why is there no mention of Yajnavalkya's Shathapatha Brahmana or the Aithereya Brahmana? There are quite a few references such as this and this which refer to these texts from 8th-9th century BC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.208.39 (talk) 08:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Those ancient Indian texts aren't mentioned in the article because (presumably) there are no reliable sources documenting their relevance to the subject of the article. By no stretch of the imagination could either of the web pages you have cited be considered a reliable source for the purposes of this article. I'm not aware of any work by a reputable historian of astronomy that lends any credence to the notion that heliocentrism was proposed in any work written in India before the Renaissance, but that's exactly what you need to provide to justify the inclusion of these claims in the article.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 12:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Agreed that those are not reliable sources but what they refer to can be verified. For example Shathapatha Brahmana 8.7.3.10 is a published translation of the sanskrit text which does have the phrase indicating at least, what seems to be a "belief" in heliocentrism. It is not from a "reputable historian of astronomy", and hence I would not contend for inclusion of this in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.208.39 (talk) 17:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
We would still need a reliable source saying that the phrase may suggest a belief in heliocentrism. Dougweller (talk) 18:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Several early sources talk about the the Earth moving - but do not say around the sun. The kind of movement is not always described - except for some that are just early sources for rotation of the Earth. The source would have to clearly have the Earth moving in orbit around the Sun for it to be given any prominence in this article. --JimWae (talk) 18:34, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The full text of the passage allegedly suggesting a belief in heliocentrism is:
"And, again, as to why he lays down the Vikarnî. When, on that (former) occasion, they make the horse smell (the pile of bricks of) the (first) layer 1, then yonder sun strings these worlds to himself on a thread. Now that thread is the same as the wind; and that wind is the same as this Vikarnî: thus when he lays down the latter, then yonder sun strings to himself these worlds on a thread."
The interpretation of this passage as suggesting such a belief would appear to me to be extremely fanciful, even if it were true (which I can see no evidence whatever for) that the word "worlds" in the text is intended to refer to "the earth, the planets, the atmosphere", as blatantly misquoted on the second of the above-cited web pages. Not that my opinion on the matter carries any more weight than that of any other non-expert, but it suggests to me that you're very unlikely to find any genuine expert who would endorse this interpretation.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 23:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Kepler

Kepler himself seems to have used his first two laws as arguments in favour of heliocentrism. See his Astronomia nova. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.228.111.31 (talk) 14:49, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

See the article Astronomia nova. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.228.111.31 (talk) 14:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Views of the Public

It really doesn't seem accurate to call the results of these polls are referring to "beliefs". The article in question is "New Poll Gauges Americans' General Knowledge Levels" not "New Poll Gauges Americans' Beliefs". If the poll in question had been presented as "99.99% percent of the scientists hold that the Earth revolves around the sun. Do you agree or disagree with this?" then you could call it a belief, but the question is presented as a quiz. The people who answered the Sun revolves around the Earth were not stating a crazy belief but making a mistake. As such, I feel this section has no more bearing on this topic than a "Jaywalking" segment has to go with geography or history. Unless there are any objections, I will remove it. Kevin Corbett (talk) 00:03, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Not sure I follow the Jaywalking analogy, but yes, given that this article gives only a history of scientific perspectives, it doesn't seem entirely relevant to mention only the early-21st-century public uptake of those perspectives, and I don't think we'd quote the same sort of trivia for other scientific articles. --McGeddon (talk) 12:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

First sentence of lead

I have restored the first sentence of the lead to the (correct) version that appeared in this revision of the page from last December 4th. "Heliocentricism" is a perfectly correct term, recorded in both the OED and the SOED. While reverting some vandalism on December 13th, this edit mistakenly replaced "heliocentricism" with "heliocentric", which had remained until it was removed yesterday (quite correctly) as ungrammatical. Unfortunately, this last edit also restored the incorrect title of the National Academy of Sciences' book Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science, which had been truncated by an earlier act of vandalism or carelessness.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 11:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I am wondering about the word "relatively" in the opening sentence. What does it mean? That the Sun is nearly stationary? That the Sun is stationary relative to the Earth? Or to the distant stars? Or to the frame of reference in use? The term is not explained anywhere, so I suggest that it be dropped. Roger (talk) 17:09, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Date rather odd

Under "Heliocentrism and Judaism", "13-5" seems to be a mistake. Possibly 1305, 1315, 1325 or the like might be right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.109.117 (talk) 11:34, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

No documentary evidence to prove it

"The possibility that Copernicus independently developed the Tusi couple remains open, since no researcher has yet proven that he knew about Tusi's work or the Maragha school" I think there is a contention built up against that notion. 1 2 3Faro0485 (talk) 11:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Two points:
  • First, the three texts you cite above merely assert a technical commonality between Copernicus's mathematical device and the Tusi couple, they do not provide any evidence that Copernicus had access to the texts of the Maragha school or that of al-Tusi. Interestingly, Neugebauer, HAMA, p. 1035, a text cited by Saliba in your first source, appears to attribute the Tusi couple and the Copernicus device to Proclus: "Copernicus quotes Proclus for his theorem in the original version, but he uses it (in the theory of Mercury) in the expanded form ... which is also found in Ṭūsī."
  • Second, the entire discussion of the Tusi couple and the possible knowledge of it by Copernicus is really irrelevant to a discussion of heliocentrism, which is the topic of this article. It may be significant that much of this marginal discussion was added [1] [2] [3] to this article by the problematic blocked editor, Jagged 85, noted for his misuse of sources. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I've just Boldly deleted most of the discussion of the Tusi couple. Feel free to edit as appropriate. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Copernicus model would have worked

Copernicus' basic intent was to eliminate the epicycles that were an important element of Ptolemy's empirical mathematical model. Copernicus' empirical model would have worked if the planetary orbits had been circular as assumed. Copernicus ran up against a new bug-a-boo, however: Elliptic orbits, which required as many if not more epicycles to get the curve fits right. In that respect Copernicus' efforts were a failure. Heliocentrism was the germ of an idea, however, that ultimately panned out. Tycho's model was an also-ran. Ptolemy's model worked just fine and can still be used today to compute rough estimates of planetary positions. To send probes to the planets, however, you need Newtonian physics with a tinge of Einstein to be really accurate. Virgil H. Soule (talk) 16:32, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

The section on the Copernican Revolution should be made briefer for better overview

The section on the Copernican Revolution seems larger than the separate article on the Copernican Revolution. It should be made briefer, and any relevant information that is here that is not already in the separate article should be integrated into the separate article. DanielDemaret (talk) 11:32, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Reference

The reference to Melanchthon is quoted from Bruce T. Moran, The Universe of Philip Melanchthon: Criticism and Use of the Copernican Theory, Comitatus 4, 1973: 1-23. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.68.199.137 (talk) 12:31, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Apology for editing error

I recently reverted a replacement of this link in a citation in the article with this one. When I first checked the article pointed to by the second link I did not take sufficient care to ensure that I had properly understood the small part of the article's introduction that I quickly glanced over. I consequently obtained the mistaken notion that the linked article was a rebuttal of the one cited, rather than a reprint of it. My apologies for the error, particlarly to the editor from IP address 143.52.60.254, who was responsible for the perfectly correct updating of the link. Thanks to another editor, Noren, who has now corrected my mistake.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 08:33, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Utility of Heliocentrism

There is scant mention of the navigational and timekeeping advantages of the heliocentric system. The article might benefit from a short section on this subject. 31.69.1.10 (talk) 10:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

There are some advantages in a geocentric system. If a space-craft is passing Saturn, a Saturno-centric system will be useful, too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.211.75.21 (talk) 10:11, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Greek

every article here on eng wiki starts with greece. i am afraid you got it wrong this time. the earliest notion that the sun is a center of this system is found in babylonian astronomy. oh wait, is babylon greek too?89.205.2.27 (talk) 15:28, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps 89.205.2.27 can produce proof that the Babylonians used a heliocentric system before that of Aristarchus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.160.31 (talk) 14:19, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
Pythagoras was putting forward a non-geocentric model of the visible universe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.160.31 (talk) 10:11, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
Pythagoras seems to travelled, but perhaps not to Babylon.
See Pythagorean astronomical system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.160.31 (talk) 10:28, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

86.177.160.31, I can produce proof that the Babylonians used a heliocentric system before that of Aristarchus. I think that statements of the following sources would add some useful missing information. Firstly, Babylonian heliocentric ideas predate Aristarchus (authored by the cosmologist who graduated Harvard) and secondly, geocentrism lasted until the 17th century. Although the title "We've Never Been Alone: A History of Extraterrestrial Intervention" is a little irrelevant the quote is from the passage "Who Invented Mathematics and the Sciences".
Ward, Paul Von (2011). We've Never Been Alone: A History of Extraterrestrial Intervention. Hampton Roads Publishing. p. 174. ISBN 161283177X, 9781612831770. A little later, Aristarchus, credited with first proposing the heliocentric theory of the universe, was only restating ideas long lost in Mesopotamia. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); External link in |last= (help)
Arp, Robert; Caplan Arthur (2013). 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think. McGraw Hill Professional. p. 206. ISBN 1476705720, 9781476705729. Thanks to Cladius Ptolemy in the second cneutry CE, geocentrism became the dominant worldview until well into the 17th century. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.160.36.45 (talk • contribs) 08:19, December 11, 2015‎ (UTC)

There is no way Paul von Ward's books could be regarded as reliable sources on ancient astronomical or cosmological beliefs. According to his CV, he has no academic qualifications in ancient history, Mesopotamian languages, or any other relevant discipline, and it cites no peer-reviewed scholarly publications in any such discipline. The only Harvard degree von Ward claims to have earned is a Masters in Public Administration. The only evidence he cites to support his assertion that the Babylonians developed a heliocentric astronomy are Zechariah Sitchin's misreadings of ancient Sumerian texts. As far as I can tell, there are no genuine experts in ancient Sumerian who agree with Sitchin's readings, and, according to Otto Neugebauer, widely regarded during his lifetime as the world's leading expert on Babylonian mathematics and astronomy, the latter was most definitely not heliocentric.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 08:57, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Columba's supposed vision of the orbit of the Earth

I have reverted the addition of the following text to the article:

"In Adomnan of Iona's biography of St Columba, Columba claims at one point that God granted him miraculous visions, including the ability to see 'the entire orbit of the whole Earth and the sea and the sky around it'.[23]"

because the expression "the entire orbit of the whole Earth" is a very poor translation of Adomnan's original Latin words "totum totius terrae orbem", which have nothing whatever to do with heliocentrism. A literal translation of "terrae orbis" would be "circle of land", but like the similar Latin expressions "orbis terrarum" and "gyrus terrae", it was a common expression used from classical times to refer either to the oikumene—i.e. the inhabited lands known to the ancients—or to the entire Earth. It cannot be reasonably interpreted as meaning the same thing as what "orbit of the Earth" would mean to a well-educated modern English speaker. In a translation of 1874, the words "totum totius terrae orbem" are rendered as "the whole compass of the world", and the meaning of this English version is undoubtedly very much closer to Adomnan's original. David Wilson (talk · cont) 08:18, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Other translations of Adomnan's "totum totius terrae orbem" are:
Wentworh Huyshe (1900): "the entire circuit of the whole world."
Alan and Marjorie Anderson (1961); "the whole circle of the whole earth."
David Wilson (talk · cont) 05:39, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Re astronomyfactbook.com

This website indicates in its terms of use that "Our websites includes a combination of content that we create, that our partners create, and that our users create." Such websites of non-attributed user created content are not suitable WP:RS. --Noren (talk) 20:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

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Article scope

The article contains a lot of valuable information, but it loses its way completely in some parts, especially the "medieval" section. It is important to trace the intellectual developments which led to the Copernican revolution, but it is not necessary to go into every detail of medieval non-heliocentric theories in the article called "Heliocentrism". All the details on theories of a rotating Earth should be discussed under " Earth's rotation". Similarly, the details of the "Copernican Revolution" should be treated in WP:SS style, because there is not one but two sub-articles, at Copernican heliocentrism and Copernican Revolution.

I will probably try to improve the situation over the next few days, so I am leaving this here as a rationale for any removal of off topic content. --dab (𒁳) 07:54, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I totally agree with you. In fact I was just thinking the same thing the other day. Go for it. Khirurg (talk) 08:11, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
It seems to me that the question of the possible "Maragha Influence on Copernicus" is now scattered over a wide range of pages and needs to be discussed on its own. This was apparently postulated by Neugebauer in the 1950s, but it does not seem to be widely accepted. Maragheh observatory does not seem to be the right place for this, nor does Copernican heliocentrism: It seems to be quite clear that Copernicus would not have been exposed to these works directly. Copernicus received all his knowledge on medieval Islamic astronomy from 15th-century translations or compendia. Our main problem appears to be that we have no dedicated article on Renaissance-era astronomy; the naive view appears to go something like "there was the Islamic Golden Age, and then there was Copernicus". But of course there had been a European tradition of debating Averroes' criticism of Ptolemy since the 13th century, and in the 15th century it appears that European observations drew even with, or even surpassed, non-European ones. Copernicus is happy to cite all Muslim astronomers he is aware of, but his awareness does not go beyond 1200 (Averroes died 1198). Apparently, the "Maghara" argument would have to postulate that 15th-century Europe was informed by 14th-century Persian astronomy by some kind of intellectual osmosis without becoming aware of the actual works of the Maghara school in any kind of direct transmission.
conclusion, a lot of material in these "heliocentrism" pages should be arranged to form an article on Renaissance astronomy. A pertinent page on de-wiki would be de:Wiener astronomische Schule. --dab (𒁳) 08:58, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

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Heliocentrism is the theory of Kepler, not of Copernicus

This part of the introduction "It was not until the 16th century that a mathematical model of a heliocentric system was presented, by the Renaissance mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic cleric Nicolaus Copernicus, leading to the Copernican Revolution. In the following century, Johannes Kepler introduced elliptical orbits, and Galileo Galilei presented supporting observations made using a telescope" requires improvement. Copernicus did not introduce a "heliocentric" theory. It was Johannes Kepler who did it in 1609 (Astronomia Nova). Just look at the recent talk to the article "Nicolaus Copernicus". Ed Dellian, Berlin, Germany2003:D2:9724:2832:41CA:CAB5:87F9:858F (talk) 14:03, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I thought that Kepler put the Sun at a focus point of those elliptical orbits, not at the center. Likewise with Newton. Roger (talk) 15:17, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
This is true. But, Kepler thought (falsely) that the sun would be at rest, and therefore it would be the "central" reference system of the revolutions, which revolutions, due to his presupposition (hypotheseis), turned out elliptical (as it must be, according to geometric considerations concerning the relations between circle and ellipse, shown by Newton: Principia, Book I, Sect. II and III). Ed Dellian2003:D2:9724:2892:E5CD:6765:8FD3:31FB (talk) 06:01, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Calvin's opinion

See https://biologos.org/articles/john-calvin-on-nicolaus-copernicus-and-heliocentrism/ . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.165.193.36 (talk) 14:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

If you wish to add a section on Calvin, add a section, with links, and sources. one inlinked sentence gives no contect for reader, so is of no help. Such as which Calvin do you mean? as John Calvin was born in 1509, and would have only been 6 years old in 1515, his thoughts clearly have no relevance in a "before 1515" section IdreamofJeanie (talk) 15:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Alleged Vedic heliocentrism

This nonsense was recently readded to the article with citations to one secondary and one tertiary source. Both citations are bogus, however, since there is nothing whatever on the cited pages of the sources given (nor anywhere else in them, as far as I can see) to support anything in the preceding paragraphs. In any case, the second citation is to Dick Teresi's Lost Discoveries, a far from reliable source. I will therefore be reverting this addition.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 21:22, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

In view of apparent disagreement about whether anything in this passage is supported by the cited sources, I should perhaps clarify these terse comments.
The source cited for the first paragraph was an article, Astronomy of the Śatapatha Brāmahṇa, by Subhash Kak in the Indian Journal of History of Science. I could find nothing in that article which in any way supports any part of the disputed material. Nothing relating to heliocentrism, nor any of the quotations given in that material, appear anywhere in Kak's article. The only mentions of Yājñavalkya in the article are on pages 27, 29 and 30 as the individual to whom "tradition assigns the authorship of the Śatapatha Brạmahṇa", and in connection with a 95-year luni-solar cycle (comprising 5 Metonic cycles) which Kak names after him.
The source cited for the second paragraph is p.130 of Dick Teresi's Lost Discoveries. But again, there's nothing whatever on that page of Teresi's book which supports anything in that second paragraph. It is true that Teresi does write:
"The Vedas recognized the sun as the source of light and warmth, the source of life, the center of creation, and the center of the spheres. This perception may have planted a seed, leading Indians thinkers to entertain the idea of heliocentricity long before some Greeks thought of it.",
on that page, which might be taken—mistakenly, in my view—as supporting the opening sentence of the disputed material, in its first paragraph. The big problem with Teresi's statement is that his only source for it is this web page, the relevant part of which in turn seems to have been lifted entirely, without attribution, from Chapter 5 of a book, India's Contribution to World Culture, self-published on the web by one Subheer Birodkar. Since neither Teresi nor Birodkar are recognised authorities on any aspect of the history of science, I fail to see how anything they write on that subject can be taken as being from a reliable source.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 05:42, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
"Since the determination of the units of time is contingent upon the accuracy with which the celestial phenomenon can be observed, the needs to study problems of mathematics and astronomy arose simultaneously ... The sen was considered the central point, the director of the Earth, around which all the planets revolved. "May the resplendent sun that comes from the center of the expanse of water of the vast ocean, purify me...", and "The sun generates all the earthly directions one by one and controls the seasons. Only the sun is the Lord of our universe."
Quoted from Indian astronomy in the era of Copernicus. Nature, volume 251, 283-285, https://doi.org/10.1038/251283a0.
It may be that Mathur's statements have been disproved since publication in 1974, but it was good enough for Nature. We should consider seriously the idea that Heliocentrism was an element of Vedic astrology. See also the Vedange Jyotisa of Lagadha, found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110501084408/http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/rawdataupload/upload/insa/INSA_1/20005abd_s1.pdf Xiang Yu 99 (talk) 04:39, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Didn't Heraclides say that earth orbits the sun?

This article says that Aristarchus was the first to propose heliocentrism. But at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclides_Ponticus#Work it says "Simplicius says that Heraclides proposed that the irregular movements of the planets can be explained if the Earth moves while the Sun stays still". Why isn't Heraclides considered to have proposed heliocentrism (he was in the same time and it's hard to know who was first)? George Albert Lee (talk) 17:58, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Plutarch's passage on Aristarchus's heliocentrism

A passage in the article dealing with Plutarch's supposed assertion that the stoic philosopher Cleanthes thought Aristarchus should have been charged with impiety was recently replaced with an alternative, stating categorically that this is a "common misconception" and that Plutarch's assertion was instead that Aristarchus had (jokingly) suggested that Cleanthes should have been charged with impiety. The two sources cited for this assertion are Lucio Russo's book The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn, and a scholarly paper, Sulla presunta accusa di empietà ad Aristarco di Samo, by Russo and a scholar of classics, Silvio Medaglia.

There are all sorts of problems with this:

  • That heliocentrism was held to be "sacrilegious" by any contemporaries of Aristarchus other than Cleanthes is not a view that either of the cited sources—nor any other reliable source that I know of—asserts as being held by anyone, let alone that it is "common", as asserted in the amendment to the article under discussion. Athough Russo does write (on p.82 of The Forgotten Revolution) "The common idea is that Aristarchus was too far ahead of his time to have had a lasting influence on the course of science, and support is generally found for it in the accusation of impiety supposedly leveled at him because of his heliocentrism", this is very far from being the same thing as, or even implying that, there exists a common misconception that any more than a single contemporary of Aristarchus objected to heliocentrism on religious grounds.
  • In adopting the views of a single scholar, Russo, against the almost universal consensus of other scholars, this change quite obviously violates Wikipedia's policy on neutral point of view. I say "single scholar" here because I see no evidence in the Russo-Medaglia article that Medaglia shares Russo's apparent view that the matter has been conclusively settled in his favour. Medaglia's role was confined to suggesting how the two primary manuscripts of Plutarch's text could be emended to produce a reading compatible with Russo's views. Unlike Russo, however, he does not imply that this must be the correct reading of the text, merely that it is a plausible alternative to the traditional one.
In fact, a literal reading of the unemended primary manuscripts turns out to be obviously untenable, because it would seem to be attributing the proposal of heliocentrism to "Cleanthes the Samian" in contradiction to the well attested facts that Cleanthes was not Samian, but from Assos, and it was Aristarchus the Samian, not Cleanthes, who was responsible for proposing the idea of heliocentrism. To obtain a reading of the manuscripts consistent with Russo's thesis, Medaglia had to replace the two traditional emendations which are the targets of Russo's criticisms with three others, every one of which is more substantial than the two discarded single-letter emendations of the traditional interpretation. Supporters of the traditional interpretation would therefore appear to have very good grounds for regarding Russo's proposed interpretation as being somewhat less plausible than their own. For anyone interested in the details, I have included them in the collapsed box below.

I shall therefore be replacing the text of this edit with something more consistent with Wikipedia's policy on neutral point of view. I do agree, however, that the passage of the article which was replaced by this edit is unsatisfactory, and I have no intention of simply reverting back to it.

Lucio Russo vs scholarly consensus

WARNING: May contain traces of (gasp!) original research. Susceptible editors should exercise appropriate caution before consuming.

The passage of Plutarch's under discussion occurs in his On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon. The earliest records of this work which are known to have survived are two corrupt manuscripts dating to the 14th and 15th centuries. All modern versions of the work are thus, at best, proposed reconstructions from these and later printed editions of the Greek text. This makes Russo's assertion (on p.82 of The Forgotten Revolution) that "Gilles Ménage ... changed a passage in Plutarch" both misleading and, in my opinion, somewhat disingenuous. What Ménage did was propose emendations to the clearly erroneous surviving manuscripts of Plutarch's work. He no more "changed a passage in Plutarch" than Silvio Medaglia did when he proposed alternative emendations with the specific aim of producing a reading of the manuscripts that would be compatible with Russo's views.

The Greek text of the passage under discussion, from the Loeb Classical Library edition of On the apparent face in the orb of the moon, edited and translated by Harold Cherniss, reads as follows:

καὶ ὁ Λεύκιος γελάσας “μόνον” εἶπεν“ ὦ τάν, μὴ κρίσιν ἡμῖν ἀσεβείας ἐπαγγείλῃς, ὥσπερ Ἀρίσταρχον ᾤετο δεῖν Κλεάνθης τὸν Σάμιον ἀσεβείας προσκαλεῖσθαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας ὡς κινοῦντα τοῦ κόσμου τὴν ἑστίαν ὅτι τὰ φαινόμενα σῴζειν ἁνὴρ ἐπειρᾶτο μένειν τὸν οὐρανὸν ὑποτιθέμενος ἐξελίττεσθαι δὲ κατὰ λοξοῦ κύκλου τὴν γῆν ἅμα καὶ περὶ τὸν αὑτῆς ἄξονα δινουμένην.

The highlighted text here indicates emendations of the primary manuscripts, those highlighted in pink being insertions, and those highlighted in pale blue being substitutions. Cherniss gives the following translation into English:

Thereupon Lucius laughed and said : "Oh, sir, just don't bring suit against us for impiety as Cleanthes thought that the Greeks ought to lay an action for impiety against Aristarchus the Samian on the ground that he was disturbing the hearth of the universe because he sought to save (the) phenomena by assuming that the heaven is at rest while the earth is revolving along the ecliptic and at the same time is rotating about its own axis."

Without the emendations accepted by Cherniss, the English translation would be something like the following:

Thereupon Lucius laughed and said : "Oh, sir, just don't bring suit against us for impiety in the way that Aristarchus thought that the Greeks ought to challenge Cleanthes the Samian for impiety on the ground that he was disturbing the hearth of the universe because, as a mere man [rather than a god] he sought to save phenomena by assuming that the heaven is at rest while the earth is revolving along the ecliptic and at the same time is rotating about its own axis.

The emendations rejected by Russo are the first two: the replacement of the manuscripts' nominative form, "Ἀρίσταρχος", of Aristarchus's name with its accusative, "Ἀρίσταρχον", and the replacement of the accusative form, "Κλεάνθη", of Cleanthes's name witn its nominative, "Κλεάνθης". However, these emendations are merely the simplest and most obvious way of modifying the text of the manuscripts to make it no longer falsely label Cleanthes as "Samian", nor appear to misattribute the theory of heliocentrism to him. Also, contrary to Russo's assertion (again on p.82 of The Forgotten Revolution) that this reading of Plutarch's text "originated" with Gilles Ménage, it had in fact already been adopted by Johannes Kepler in his Latin translation, made some time before 1629—around 35 years before the publication of the 1664 edition of Diogenes Laertius's Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers in which Ménage reportedly proposed his emendations to the Greek.

The Greek text proposed by Medaglia as being consistent with Russo's theory is the following (with the same highlighting conventions as above used to indicate emendations of the primary manuscripts):

καὶ ὁ Λεύκιος γελάσας “μόνον” εἶπεν“ ὦ τάν, μὴ κρίσιν ἡμῖν ἀσεβείας ἐπαγγείλῃς, ὥσπερ Ἀρίσταρχος ᾤετο δεῖν Κλεάνθη τοὺς Σάμιους ἀσεβείας προσκαλεῖσθαι εις τοὺς Ἕλληνας ὡς κινοῦντα τοῦ κόσμου τὴν ἑστίαν ὅτι τὰ φαινόμενα σῴζειν ἁνὴρ ἐπειρᾶτο μένειν τὸν οὐρανὸν ὑποτιθέμενος ἐξελίττεσθαι δὲ κατὰ λοξοῦ κύκλου τὴν γῆν ἅμα καὶ περὶ τὸν αὑτῆς ἄξονα δινουμένην.

The first, second and fourth of Medaglia's proposed emendations are those which have replaced the two traditional ones. Medaglia's translation into Italian is the following:

Lucio scoppiò a ridere e disse: 'Amico, evita soltanto di intimarci un accusa di empietà, nel modo in cui Aristarco credeva necessario che gli abitanti di Samo accusassero davanti ai Greci Cleante in quanto questo faceva muovere il focolare dell'universo [il sole]; il fatto è che quell'uomo [Aristarco] si sforzava di salvaguardare mere apparenze: supponeva che il cielo fosse immobile e che la terra si muovesse lungo un'orbita obliqua, ruotando anche contemporaneamente intorno al suo asse.'

My English translation of Medaglia's Italian is:

Lucius burst out laughing and said 'My friend, simply avoid imposing an accusation of impiety on us, in the way that Aristarchus believed necessary for the Samians to accuse Cleanthes in front of all the Greeks, inasmuch as the latter had the hearth of the universe [the Sun] moved; the fact is that that man [Aristarchus] made an effort to save mere appearances: he supposed that the heavens were motionless and that the Earth moved along an oblique orbit, and also simultaneously rotated on its axis.'
Medaglia gets around the problem that the most natural thing to take as the antecedent of "that man" ("ἁνὴρ") in his Greek text would be "the latter" who "had the hearth of the universe moved" (i.e. Cleanthes) by simply declaring that it must instead be taken to be Aristarchus.


David Wilson (talk · cont) 14:58, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

A little Known fact of Heliocentrism is that the Sun is both Heaven and Hell; the center to your Being. 74.82.228.84 (talk) 00:29, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
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