How the Bizarre Path of Mars Reshaped Astronomy [Kepler's Laws Part 2]

Special thanks to the Patrons:
Juan Benet, Ross Hanson, Yan Babitski, AJ Englehardt, Alvin Khaled, Eduardo Barraza, Hitoshi Yamauchi, Jaewon Jung, Mrgoodlight, Shinichi Hayashi, Sid Sarasvati, Dominic Beaumont, Shannon Prater, Ubiquity Ventures, Matias Forti

Welch Labs

References
On the Shoulders of Giants: The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy. (2003). Kiribati: Penguin.
Koestler, A. (2017). The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe. United Kingdom: Penguin Books Limited.
The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy. (1999). United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Mazer, A. (2011). Shifting the Earth: The Mathematical Quest to Understand the Motion of the Universe. Germany: Wiley.
Voelkel, J. R. (2021). The Composition of Kepler's Astronomia Nova. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press.
Kepler, J. (2015). Astronomia Nova. United States: Green Lion Press.
Stephenson, B. (2012). Kepler’s Physical Astronomy. Switzerland: Springer New York.
Brahe, T., Dreyer, J. L. E. (1972). Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera omnia. Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.

[mattabesta]

"Kepler found himself going in circles" lmao

[AlphaPhoenixChannel]

This is a great telling of a great story! It’s such fascinating to watch the floundering and missteps as they tried to figure this stuff out that we now take for granted. I’m wondering what somebody in 50 years retracing the steps I’m taking right now in my own work would have to laugh at…

[yaitz]

It's absolutely wild to think that, not only did basic facts about the world have to be discovered, but even how to deduce those facts had to be. Kepler may have just been an obsessive perfectionist, but his repeated checking of his work until he got everything right is arguably the first example of the scientific method in full blossom; hypothesize, observe, refine.

[laremere]

Kepler's discovery of elliptical orbits has long been a favorite story and demonstrative example: Copernicus is now hailed as a visionary who's theory was rejected out of dogmatic belief in the planets orbiting Earth. However his proposal was rejected on the basis that it is a poorer match of the data than the current models. It wasn't until Kepler found his elliptical orbits that the heliocentric model produced better results. This is close to an error commonly seen in science (mostly by amateur scientists), where people propose an overly simple model that just doesn't match the data, and when they are rejected on this basis they rail against science for not seeing their vision. It's an important lesson in pride, and knowing that while simplicity is beautiful and should be sought, it must match the data and have predictive power to be an explanation.

I knew this story from a history of science class, but I never knew the details of the math until your videos. Thank you very much.

[agargamer]

Mind-blowing to think about the amount of work needed to calculate all of this by hand over literal years

[Daz]

Johannes Kepler is such an underrated genius. I mean I can't even imagine how hard it would have been to do all these calculations by hand, let alone coming up with such counter-intuitive ideas like elliptical orbits that explain the motion of planets. Even the modern mathematical notation that we take for granted nowadays still wasn't fully developed in the early 1600s. Amazing stuff as always Welch Labs

[CP_]

My dad used to be a helmsman for a cargo ship of the Holland America line, he learned to navigate by stars. When I was born he named me after Tycho Brahe, very interesting to learn about him and Kepler

[jorgesaxon]

4:46 yeah to be honest even though its sounds weird today, magnetism is such a fair guess by Kepler, given that, some 400 years later, we still have no f*cking clue what gravity is.
Edit: Gravity at a quantum level

[jmchez]

I remember reading that Kepler had many critics of his book because they found it really boring because he spent way too much time explaining all of his mistakes instead of getting to the point. He said that people who read about Magellan were interested in all of his adventures as he discovered new lands. Therefore, they should also be interested in all of his travails as he discovered new methods to calculate celestial mechanics.

As much as I sympathize with Kepler, Magellan's adventures and Kepler's many calculations are not the same thing, entertainment-wise.

[jinks]

Just discovered your channel. You are an outstanding teacher. I couldn't believe this video was only 15 minutes long. I feel like you've packed an hour's worth of material in here, but presented it so efficiently and effectively that it only takes a quarter of the time to comprehend it. Really polished and well-made, man. First-class.

[aloysiuskurnia]

9:58 "Fruitless battle with the egg" is such an amazing phrase without context 😂😂😂

[reidflemingworldstoughestm]

Can we take a moment to show respect for the sheer amount of time and effort Kepler's work would have taken having to to do all of his calculations with a quill pen.

[kirkhamandy]

This is the content YouTube was made for. Cheers!

[vaibhavtrivedi]

You have done exceptional work on this to find Kepler's exact thought process and ideas. I understand Kepler's law better than any physics book from these videos. Thank you.

[DannySeghers]

This video demonstrates what a genius Kepler was.
I like the phrase: “… what it really looks like to do modern science. In stead of having phylosofical debates about how nature should work, they turned to methodical observation and messy experimentation.”
That reminded me of the standard model of particles, and how theories like string theory - no observations, no experiments, just mathematical debates -paralyze science for decades.

[jerrodwendland]

"... and a fruitless battle with the egg..." Same lol!

[Rubrickety]

This is a terrific series. Every previous telling of Kepler's story I've heard (and I've heard/read a lot!) is basically "He had this nested-platonic-solids idea which was wrong and amusing, then eventually he got all of Tycho's data and messed around and finally hit on ellipses." I'd never heard of his "extremely accurate but actually wrong" model, or what propelled him on to the correct one.

[frozencanuck]

Wow, this was so well put together. The attention to mathematical and historical detail all while being entertaining to watch is a testament to impeccable creativity. Bravo!!

[QuantumHistorian]

I know I'm late, having only recently discovered the channel, but this explanation is amazing. It doesn't shy away from the technical maths, but it doesn't get in the way of the narrative. It is very, *very* rare for that idea to be achieved in presentations on the history of science. This video deserves 10x the views, and to be recommended to every student of physics / astronomy.

[Abdalrhman_Kilesee]

I swear this channel deserve 3 sextillion dollars of donations