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Three Cheers For Epicyles?

A green velvet robe with a white fur collar. Ohmygod, Copernicus is the Ghost of Christmas Present!
 
Myth: The Copernican system was simpler than the Ptolemaic system. Some things were clearly simpler, but he actually used more epicycles! The Prutenic Tables were not better than the Alfonsine tables.
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Sort of. The Copernican epicycles were his way of accounting for elliptical motion rather than using equant points (think Spirograph motion) which were confusing. Both were way off in their predicitions (but in different places) and both had epicycles, but the Copernican model used simpler uniform motion. Had Copernicus worked after Descartes he might have developed a more accurate system than Ptolemy. Kepler had the advantage of ellipses.
 
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