"Reviewing the suggestions of the ancient Greeks, he [ Copernicus ] was struck by the simplification that would be introduced by reviving the idea that the annual motion should be attributed to the earth itself instead of having a separate annual epicycle for each planet and for the sun. Of the seventy odd circles or epicycles required by the latest form of the Ptolemaic system, Copernicus succeeded in dispensing with rather more than half, but he still required thirty-four, which was the exact number assumed before the time of Aristotle."
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Kepler
Kepler is a short history of events leading to the astronomical discoveries of Johannes Kepler. It was written by Walter William Bryant, a staff member of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The book was published in 1920 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, and by The MacMillan Company, New York, within a series of books called "Pioneers of Progress."
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