64d ago

So I was wondering why, when Kepler gave up the idea that an orbit was a circle, he tried all sorts of crazy egg-like shapes to match the data before trying the simple and more harmonious ellipse. (He

So I was wondering why, when Kepler gave up the idea that an orbit was a circle, he tried all sorts of crazy egg-like shapes to match the data before trying the simple and more harmonious ellipse. (He was into geometrical aesthetics.) Why did it take so long? The ellipse was so obvious that he assumed someone else must have already tried it. He did not have @ RonJeffries around to tell him to do t

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So I was wondering why, when Kepler gave up the idea that an orbit was a circle, he tried all sorts of crazy egg-like shapes to match the data before trying the simple and more harmonious ellipse. (He

mastodon:mstdn-socialother64d ago kagi ↗

So I was wondering why, when Kepler gave up the idea that an orbit was a circle, he tried all sorts of crazy egg-like shapes to match the data before trying the simple and more harmonious ellipse. (He was into geometrical aesthetics.) Why did it take so long? The ellipse was so obvious that he assumed someone else must have already tried it. He did not have @ RonJeffries around to tell him to do t