The Greatest Myth in the History of Astronomy

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Colloquium The Greatest Myth in the History of Astronomy Owen Gingerich "But perhaps the theory has too many epicycles..." We all know that the metaphor means that the theory is unnecessarily complicated, like the over-embellished Ptolemaic astronomy at the time of Copernicus. For more than forty years I have been fighting this historical misconception, the notion of epicycles-on-epicycles. But today I realize that there is another related myth, even more deeply ingrained, a way of unwittingly viewing the historical record with such modern standards that it comes as a shock to realize how anachronistic and false that is. Be prepared to have your astronomical vision of the past two millennia jolted!