Francis Bacon und das Heliozentrische Weltbild

Popper schreibt, »Francis Bacon, for example, sneered at those who denied the self-evident truth that the sun and the stars rotated around the Earth, which was obviously at rest. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume Two, chapter 11.II, p. 18 (ISBN 978-0-415-27842-3)

Ich finde auf die Schnelle keinen Beleg dafür, nur einen Vorschlag Bacons, durch welche Beobachtungen man die Frage entscheiden könne:

Let the nature investigated be the spontaneous motion of rotation, and in particular whether the diurnal motion whereby to our eyes the sun and stars rise and set, be a real motion of rotation in the heavenly bodies, or a motion apparent in the heavenly bodies, and real in the earth. We may here take for a crucial instance the following. If there be found in the ocean any motion from east to west, however weak and languid; if the same motion be found a little quicker in the air, especially within the tropics, where because of the larger circles it is more perceptible; if the same motion be found in the lower comets, but now lively and vigorous; if the same motion be found in planets, but so distributed and graduated that the nearer a planet is to the earth its motion is slower, the further a planet is distant from the earth its motion is quicker, and quickest of all in the starry sphere; then indeed we should receive the diurnal motion as real in the heavens, and deny such motion to the earth. http://patrick.maher1.net/317/lectures/bacon5.pdf

Letzteres Zitat bezeichnet Maher übrigens als »Bacon’s crucial instance for rotation of Earth«.

Zeittafel

1543		Kopernikus veröffentlicht De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
1561	Bacon wird geboren
1609		Kepler veröffentlicht Astronomia Nova mit den ersten zwei Keplerschen Gesetzen.
1620	Bacon veröffentlicht Novum Organum
1626	Bacon stirbt
1687		Newton veröffentlicht Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica