Observations, phenomenology and theories

At Galactic Interactions, Rob Knop tells the story of Tycho Brahe, who made the most accurate observations of planetary motions, Kepler who derived the empirical laws that explained Brahe’s observations, and Newton, who came up with the gravitational theoretical basis of the laws of Kepler.

The post reminded me of a talk of Prof. Roddam Narasimha, in which, he explained how ancient Indian astronomers made accurate observations, and found empirical fits for the data so that they can predict astronomical events (which, due to the approximations they made, needed to be modified every once in few centuries), but never bothered themselves with theorising; on the other hand, ancient Greeks were keen on theorising (at times oblivious to the then available experimental evidence). A modified (and more detailed) version of that talk is available here (pdf), and is a very good read too.