2023/12/15 by Christopher M. Graney, Graney, Christopher M.
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Historical Astronomy and Related Studies #Historical Philosophy and Science #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #History of Science and Medicine
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2312.09898
openalex publication_date 2023/12/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper argues that Tycho Brahe's "principal argument against Copernicus" (as the astronomer Christiaan Huygens called it) likely derived from a much older argument regarding the sizes of the "two great lights" described in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. Brahe's argument, that in the Copernican system stars would have to be absurdly large, played an important role in opposition to the Copernican system in the seventeenth century. Brahe presented the argument in an exchange of letters with Christoph Rothmann in 1588-89. Within that exchange Rothmann and Brahe touched both on the question of the two great lights of Genesis and on theologians such as Augustine of Hippo who treated that question. The fundamentals of Brahe's important line of argument against Copernicus thus well pre-dated Copernicus and Brahe.