Western Civilization II / Unit 5 WC2 0407 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Brahe's Data and Kepler's Sun-Centered Proof
Captions available
The idea
Tycho Brahe spent twenty years gathering data to refute heliocentrism; the data outlived the argument. His assistant Kepler used it to prove the sun central and to derive, the witness says, three laws of planetary motion, sensing a force from the sun.
In practice
The force was gravity; Newton named it.
Where people slip
A Protestant imperial mathematician tolerated through the Thirty Years' War.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it