Galileo's hantise de la circularité

Épopée des Sections Coniques.
https://www.davidboeno.org/GROEUVRE/CONIQUES/cerclDroit.html

Galileo's hantise de la circularité
(to borrow the beautiful phrase of Alexandre Koyré)
which made it impossible for him to visualize the solar system as a combination of ellipses.
Where we would consider the circle as a special case of the ellipse, Galileo could not but feel that the ellipse is a distorted circle:
a form which was, so to speak, unworthy of celestial bodies.

Erwin Panofsky, Galileo as a Critic of the Arts, Isis, Vol. 47, No. 1. March 1956.

#coniques #conic #ellipse #Galileo #Panofsky #Koyré

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