Epi Cycles

Once upon a time, a long time ago, scientists had invested long and complex mathematics in describing the paths that the sun and planets took around the earth. Each object had its own unique and ever proliferating equations. It was unfortunate that the problem was so complex, but that was the way of it.

One scientist, Copernicus, considered another hypothesis, that the earth and planets went around the sun. Copernicus' solutions were much simpler, all very similar in nature, and relied on just a very few principles.

Everyone could see that Copernicus was over-simplifying and really didn't understand the inherent complexity of astronomical calculations. This complexity was necessary to the solution of this kind of problem. It was required, in the name of good science, to suppress his mistaken ideas - because the sun and planets really do rotate around the earth.

His system still didn't explain the orbits completely and was rejected by his contemporaries for that reason. The world would have to wait for Kepler's ellipses.

But it was the best model so far, at least with regard to prediction value. DontComplainWithoutAlternatives. As far as the general idea, I'm sure were are making some silly scientific mistakes now. The cosmic behavior that we currently deem "Dark matter" may not even be matter, for example. We stumble in the dark with imperfect knowledge until we finally guess right, allowing us to find the next dark room, and it's rinse-and-repeat there.

Moral: to a man standing on the sun, everything looks like a conic section.

(Alternative moral: to a man standing on the sun, everything looks dark (and cold).)

Alternative alternative - to a man standing on the sun, everything looks like nothing much at all, because he's been vaporized.

I wonder if it would be possible to create a sufficiently-accurate epicycle model today, using modifications such as multi-nested circles, ellipsis, offset bars, etc. It's not just MentalMasturbation, but also raises the issue of what would have happened to the general technique if they were able to create a really good predictive model. It's sort of like the history debate subject of, "What if Hitler got The Bomb to work?"

See AddingEpicycles