Question About Orbits

I am nearly done with Brothers Karamazov. Once you get into the trial section, the book reads like a bullet out of a gun. SO good.

But here’s my question, and it’s kind of a history/science-knowledge kind of question:

In the chapter where it is revealed that Ivan receives this nightly visitor, and it is revealed who this visitor is (I just can’t bring myself to tell you, if you haven’t read it … because it was an enormous shock to me when I got to that chapter) –
But anyway, in this chapter, the visitor makes reference to an axe falling through space (he’s talking about the cold, and little kids putting their tongues against freezing things and having the skin ripped off, etc.) – well, I can’t explain it, here’s the excerpt I have the question about:

“You know the game the village girls play — they invite the unwary to lick an ax in zero weather, the tongue instantly freezes to it and the fool tears the skin off, so it bleeds. But that’s only at zero, at 150 below I imagine it would be enough to put your finger on the ax and it would be the end of it … If only there could be an ax there.”

“And can there be an ax there?” Ivan interrupted carelessly…

“An ax?” the guest interrupted in surprise.

“Yes, what would become of an ax there?” Ivan cried suddenly, with a sort of savage and insistent obstinacy.

“What would become of an ax in space? What an idea! If it were to fall any distance, it would begin, I think, flying around the earth without knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomers would calculate the rising and setting of the ax …”

Brothers K was published in 1880, I think, or 1881.

Obviously, at that point, orbits of planets were understood and known of.

I’ve never really thought of this before, because – well, it never occurred to me until I read that sentence – but “satellite” isn’t solely a word from our technological age? How would Dostoevsky know that things would be launched into our orbit and then circle the planet?

Where does the word “satellite” come from, is basically my question. Also … how early was it in time that orbits were understood, and it was understood that if you put something IN the orbit, it would circle the earth automatically “without knowing why”…

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41 Responses to Question About Orbits

  1. Curtis says:

    I think Satellite was a common way to refer to moons. Or anything in orbit around a planet. But I am not too sure… I just seem to remember reading that.

    My curiosity it peaked…

  2. red says:

    So it was a common term for celestial bodies then.

  3. Curtis says:

    Ah… satellite is literally an object that orbits another object. It would have been a common term in physics at the time.

    http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/satellite

  4. red says:

    Curtis –

    Fabulously quick response. I would expect no less from a person who loves Mews Tavern.

  5. red says:

    Satellites were understood to be things that orbit the earth, or any old planet. Then when we launched things into space, that would be known (to be really technical) as an “artificial satellite” as opposed to a “natural satellite”.

    Very interesting.

  6. skillzy says:

    I had always thought that Elvis Costello coined the term satellite in 1989, on the Spike album.

  7. red says:

    Ha! I saw that concert – with my brother and my boyfriend. I’ve seen him play a ton of times, but that particular tour stands out.

    Doesn’t Dave Matthews have a song about satellites too? I’m hearing his voice in my mind right now, and it’s kind of annoying me.

  8. Curtis says:

    I get that stupid Dave Mathews Satellite song stuck in my head every time I read the word satellite. I went through a phase where I would listen to that song over and over again. Now it just repeats in my head. And not the whole song mind you. Just “Satellite”, over and over. MUST THINK OF A NEW SONG…

  9. John says:

    The Russian word for satellite is (you guessed it)… Sputnik. Literally it means “companion”, but I think it has a subservient connotaion even with that meaning. Sputnik was used to describe moons and asteroids in the Russain physics texts of the 1880s. I think your translation might be modern, an 1880s English speaker might have translated it as “like an asteroid” or “like a comet”, although satellite was in use then in sceintific English as well.

  10. John says:

    To answer your other question, Keppler published his Laws of Planetary Motion in 1609, and Newton formulated his law of Inertia (1st Law of Motion) to explain why the planets kept going round and round in about 1666.

  11. John says:

    Sheila, you ought to do a post on Tyco Brahe, Keppler’s (sort of) mentor, collaborator, and the experimentalist who supplied Keppler with all the data to formulate his laws (I get this feeling Keppler couldn’t use a sextant for squat, like most theoreticians).

    Legend has it Brahe was a hard drinkin’, hard-lovin’, dueling fool who had the part of his nose that was shot off in a fight replaced with a gold prosthetic.

  12. red says:

    Strangely enough, I’m a little bit obsessed with Tycho Brahe. I don’t know that much about him but here is what i know:

    — Yes, he had some kind of weird prosthetic nose.

    — He would put on his court robes every single time he looked through his telescope. To him, staring at the stars was a momentous thing to do, very formal. And you shouldn’t be wearing your jeans and flip-flops (or the medieval/Renaissance/whatever version of such) when you do so. (I love that about him.)

    — He died from his bladder bursting, because he was too polite to interrupt the King’s speech … or am I insane and making that up???

  13. red says:

    Curtis:

    Imagine Dave Matthews singing “Sputnik” as opposed to ‘satellite”. Doesn’t quite have the same ring.

  14. red says:

    John –

    I’m reading the Constance Garnett translation – pretty standard. I think she did her translation in the 1950s.

  15. John says:

    I hadn’t heard about the robes. I did hear the story about the bladder, but I don’t know if it was apocryphal. I’ve heard various versions: he did’n’t want to interrupt the king, it was a bet who could hold it in the longest while drinking, he was in a marathon boinking session and didn’t want to stop, etc. The man attracted legends like a magnet attracts iron filings.

    I did visit his grave in Prague to pay my respects, though.

  16. red says:

    Sounds like he would have been a fun guy to know.

  17. John says:

    Keppler the monk was fascinated by his genius, repelled by his personal habits. I think I would rather have hung out with Brahe.

  18. red says:

    I knew I had posted something about Tycho Brahe. A long time ago some other blogger did a survey: “Who would you like to be at a dinner party with, living or dead?”

    Tycho Brahe was on my list. (The comments are where all this other stuff about Brahe comes out …)

  19. John says:

    That’s why we read you Sheila, you’re never a “little bit” obsessed with anything.

  20. red says:

    It’s true. With me, there is never a middle road. Uhm … is this a kind way to say I’m bipolar?

    Still.

    I’d like to sit at a dinner table with Tycho Brahe, Scott and Zelda F, John and Abigail A, and Lech Walesa.

    I mean, please. Wouldn’t that be great?

  21. peteb says:

    Tycho’s prosthetic nose was, if I recall, made to replace the one he lost in a duel… I seem to remember, and it’s a while since i read this (but I do have Kitty Ferguson’s double biography sitting in front of me – reviews welcome as it’s waiting in the list of things-to-do) that Tycho wasn’t exactly enamoured with the young Kepler and was very reluctant to give full access to his observational data – even though he recognised Kepler’s brilliance.

  22. peteb says:

    I just re-read that.. heheh.. by ‘lost’ I mean, of course, cut off in a duel. Kinda ‘lost’, more mislaid.

  23. John says:

    Looks as if his bladder didn’t explode, but holding his urine probably led to the final bout of a chronic bladder infection that plagued him for some time.

    http://tafkac.org/death/brahe_death_of.html

    Knowing Brahe’s fondness for wenching, I wonder if the infection might have been an STD.

  24. red says:

    Where the HELL did I put my nose?

  25. John says:

    Peteb – I heard of the reluctance to share data as well. I think there was mutual antipathy there at the beginning – Brahe detested religious blowhards, and Kepler was a man of the Church. I think Brahe released his data in sections, and Kepler had to keep pestering for more data to corroborate his theories.

  26. red says:

    I am trying to remember where I heard the story about Brahe putting on court robes to look through his telescope …

    So if he wasn’t a religious man, then – this wasn’t so much a reverent moment for him – as putting on formal-wear, appropriate to a big occasion.

    I’m just guessing.

  27. John says:

    “Where the HELL did I put my nose?”

    And now we’ve gone from Dostoevsky to Gogol. Love this blog.

  28. red says:

    hahahahaha

    If Dave J were here, he could get us to The Breakfast Club in about 2 comments, I bet.

  29. red says:

    I think I might have to be Tycho Brahe for Halloween next year. There’s so much stuff to work with. Court robes, prosthetic nose, bursting bladders … scientific genius …

  30. peteb says:

    John

    I’m dipping into this biography of both Brahe and Kepler here and it’s moving to the top of the pile as a result.. Kepler complained to anyone who’d listen about only being shown the “choicest” observations and Tycho saw himself very much as the benefactor of the two – he did pay Kepler a salary.. it seems Kepler’s Copernican leanings were a source of conflict too..

    My nose?… it was here a minute a go!

  31. red says:

    Now I’m thinking of Marcia Brady, when she broke her nose. “My nose, my nose!” weeping at her own reflection.

    Carry on.

  32. red says:

    Here’s an excerpt from a book I posted a while back about Ulug Beg – another famous astronomer/scientist, who was the grandson of Tamerlane. However, he wasn’t a murdering monster like Tamerlane … he was responsible for turning Samarqand into one of the hot-spots of the medieval world, building observatories and schools and stuff like that. I guess scientists from all around would visit Samarqand.

  33. red says:

    Actually, I posted that excerpt not because of Ulugh Beg – but because of Samarqand – a place on this planet that I MUST SEE SOMEDAY. Whenever I read anything about it, I feel like I want to crawl between the lines of the pages, and actually go there – smell the smells, talk to people, see everything that I have already imagined in my head …

  34. peteb says:

    Another fascinating place to visit, Sheila.. but there are so many qusetoins from that brief mention of Ulugh Beg (and the Beg is more than reminiscent of the Gaelic ‘Beag’ meaning ‘small’.. converted, in regular use, here in townland names as ‘Beg’).

    and only two years before assassination.. who did he antagonise?.. the politcs involved.. his focus on the science of the time must have created friction.. and how many of the observations are ‘his’? Especially with the legacy you refer to.. a post that sparks!

  35. peteb says:

    make that ‘questions’.. sheesh.. preview, Pete, preview!

  36. red says:

    peteb:

    I have some books at home on his observatories. Because I’m a lunatic. I’ll check them out.

    Colin Thubron (he’s written some GREAT books – my favorite is his trilogy on Russia – really, you have got to read them if you haven’t already) traveled through Central Asia directly following the crack-up of the Soviet Union to see how everyone was doing, etc.

    He went to Samarqand which is still, in a way, haunted by the double-legacy – of Tamerlane the warrior and Ulug Beg (it’s spelled differently in every source I read) the astronomer philanthropist.

    I actually went to the tourist site of Samarqand when I was trying to figure out how to get my ass there, and there are pictures of the observatories, and of the biggest madrassah there – which is named after him.

  37. red says:

    Oh, and if you’re interested in Thubron’s books, here’s the titles:

    Among the Russians – his tale of traveling through White Russia in 1980.

    In Siberia – he took a train across Siberia right after the Soviet Union collapsed.

    The Lost Heart of Asia (my favorite of the trilogy) – He travels through all of the “stans” in 1991 and 1992. GREAT book. Prophetic in many ways, about the region – Islamic fundamentalism growing because of the confusion of independence, stuff like that.

    Wonderful books. Travelogues, but full of history.

  38. peteb says:

    Titles noted.. and noted, Sheila. Thank you.

    And the variations in the spelling of ‘Beg’ are less important.. it’s the phonetics and context that provide the link.

    But Ulug Beg following such a legacy?.. I can see the warrior generals bristling, assuming the change was as abrupt as reported.

  39. red says:

    Peteb:

    I looked up a bit more on the dude last night … I’ll post a bit of it in a moment. It appears that he was murdered by some kind of radical group, headed up by his own son.

  40. peteb says:

    Just spotted it Sheila, Thank you. I found a couple of online articles about Ulug (Ulugh) as well. I’ll add in what those say.. and my flight of fancy on Beag earlier seems more than likely to be just that – a flight of fancy.

  41. peteb says:

    Oh.. that Kitty Ferguson biography I mentioned may be worth looking at. It charts the relationship between Tycho and Kepler – Kepler only gained full access to Tycho’s data after his death, although an agreement had been reached to collaborate closely on the Rudolfine tables shortly before that event. It seems fairly exhaustive and covers the scientific arguments of the time as well.

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