100 COSMOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY 



which we must suppose ourseh^es entirely unaware. The absence of 

 stellar parallax is "explained" by the postulate— not merely arbitrary 

 but acti\'ely repulsive— that the nearest stars are fantastically distant. 

 Necessarily impugning scholastic interpretations of motion, the Co- 

 pernican system could itself account for the continuance of celestial 

 motions only by the suggestion of a special "naturalness" to motion 

 in perfect circles. Inadequate at best, this "explanation" collapses 

 widi Kepler's demonstration that the planets do not pursue accu- 

 rately circular courses. Why then did anybody credit the Copernican 

 theory? Because of course to a few that theory oflFered a breath- 

 taking vision of mathematical harmony. Polanyi well observes that 

 we have here no simple rejection of the anthropocentricity implicit 

 in a geocentric system but, rather, a preference for a diflFerent aes- 

 thetic anthropocentricity maintaining that nature is the embodiment 

 of mathematical regularities harmonious in the ears of men. 



A further element of aesthetic appeal sustained Copernicus' system 

 in the face of the far sterner challenge posed by the Tychonic system 

 for the next three-quarters of a century. Far more readily reconciled 

 with scholastic mechanics, but mathematically the exact equivalent 

 of the Copernican theory, Tycho's system remained clearly superior 

 even as a correlative device until the work of Newton. The earth is 

 stationary, and neither the "evidence of the senses" nor the absence 

 of detectable parallax need then be explained away with additional 

 postulates. We say that the Tychonic system is wrong, and rejoice 

 that some men rejected it from the outset. On what basis could they 

 possibly do so? As far as I can make out, the root of their rejection of 

 the Tychonic system lay in its failure to assign the central position 

 to that great luminary, the sun. To a Neoplatonic the sun "belonged" 

 in the center, and he could cling to the Copernican theory simply out 

 of regard for this element of aesthetic appeal wholly lacking in its 

 competitor. 



Aesthetic considerations remain powerful in science. Everlastingly 

 compelling, considerations of symmetry (physical and/or mathe- 

 matical) are no less so in the present era of quantum mechanics. In- 

 deed, but a few years ago the concern for symmetry evoked from de 

 Broglie a distinct echo of Copernicus' opinion that, to be acceptable, 

 a theory must appear "sufficiently pleasing to the mind." 



. . . some physicists have even come to doubt the existence of a real 

 symmetry between light and matter concerning the duality of their 



