How to make the Earth orbit the Sun in 1614

TL;DR

In 1614, Johann Georg Locher proposed that Earth's orbit around the Sun is a perpetual fall, a concept that predates Newton's physics and was debated among Jesuit scholars before becoming the standard explanation.

Contribution

The paper uncovers the historical development of the orbit concept, highlighting Locher's early proposal and its subsequent rejection prior to Newton's formulation.

Findings

Locher proposed the orbit as a perpetual fall in 1614.

Jesuit scholars considered and rejected Locher's idea before Newton.

The concept of orbit as a perpetual fall predates Newton's physics.

Abstract

In 1614 Johann Georg Locher, a student of the Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner, proposed a physical mechanism to explain how the Earth could orbit the sun. An orbit, Locher said, is a perpetual fall. He proposed this despite the fact that he rejected the Copernican system, citing problems with falling bodies and the sizes of stars under that system. In 1651 and again in 1680, Jesuit writers Giovanni Battista Riccioli and Athanasius Kircher, respectively, considered and rejected outright Locher's idea of an orbit as a perpetual fall. Thus this important concept of an orbit was proposed, considered, and rejected well before Isaac Newton would use an entirely different physics to make the idea that an orbit is a perpetual fall the common way of envisioning and explaining orbits.