Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/168

122 observation were sufficiently improved to measure with some accuracy the apparent sizes of the sun and moon, and so check the variations in their distances. But any variation in the distance of the earth from the sun would affect not merely the distance, but also the direction in which a planet would be seen; in the figure, for example, when the planet is at and the sun at, the apparent position of the planet, as seen from the earth, will be different according as the earth is at  or '. Hence the epicycles and eccentrics of Coppernicus, which had to be adjusted in such a way that

they necessarily involved incorrect values of the distances between the sun and earth, gave rise to corresponding errors in the observed places of the planets. The observations which Coppernicus used were hardly extensive or accurate enough to show this discrepancy clearly but a crucial test was thus virtually suggested by means of which, when further observations of the planets had been made, a decision could be taken between an epicyclic representation of the motion of the planets and some other geometrical scheme.

91. The merits of Coppernicus are so great, and the part