hmountain t1_j543da7 wrote
Reply to comment by CanterburyTerrier in Ancient humans and their early depictions of the universe: “It is no exaggeration to say that astronomy has existed as an exact science for more than five millennia,” writes the late science historian John North. by clayt6
Kepler was several hundred years later than Shen Kuo of china who described “willow leaf” shaped motion of planets and retrograde motion in the 11th century AD.
soundoftheunheard t1_j54fcfe wrote
I don’t think Shen Kuo’s willow leaf explanation (where traversing the “point” is part of the explanatory power and not mathematically explained) of retrograde motion in a geocentric model is in the same realm as Kepler producing the math showing elliptic orbits in a heliocentric model.
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