This was an enormous gain in simplicity and elegance. On the other hand, the shifting of the centre of the universe to a place in the vicinity of the sun entailed an almost equal loss in plausibility. Previously, the universe had possessed a solid hub, the earth, a very solid and tangible hub indeed; now the whole world was hinged on a point in empty space. Moreover, that imaginary point was still defined by the orbit of the earth, and the motions of the whole system still depended on the motions of the earth. Not even the planes of the planetary orbits met in the sun; they oscillated in
...more
