(ORDO NEWS) — It is strange, but, according to the physically unfounded Titius-Bode law, which indicated the order of the planets in the solar system, in place of the asteroid belt there really should have been a planet
a = 0.4+0.3·2 n .
where n takes the values: minus infinity, 0, 1, 2, etc., and is the distance from the Sun in astronomical units.
According to this law, formulated in the middle of the 18th century, the semi-major axes of the orbits of all planets should be in an increasing geometric progression. All the planets known at that time (before Saturn) fit into the progression invented by Titius.
Mercury corresponded to the value minus infinity, Venus corresponded to zero, Earth to one, Mars to two, Jupiter to four, Saturn to five … And only in the interval between Mars and Jupiter, one planet was missing, determined by the number n, equal to three.
Later, Neptune did not fit into this pattern. But the previously discovered Uranus only strengthened the “weight” of the law in the minds of astronomers: another number came under it – six. Indeed, so many coincidences in the arrangement of the planets, generally speaking, are unlikely.
Today again raises the question of the Titius-Bode law and its legitimacy. Titius, formulating it, he looked for harmony in the arrangement of celestial bodies and found it. Modern astronomers are trying to get to the knowledge about the birth of the entire solar system.
Existing models of this action do not satisfy all the problems that arise around such a difficult issue. Maybe the Titius-Bode law will receive a physical and mathematical justification in the future?
Recall that this is a law not substantiated by scientific methods, a law that “just came up”, such laws are called empirical. Empirical, for example, are Kepler’s laws, gas laws known to everyone from the course of physics: Charles’s law, Boyle-Mariotte’s law, Gay-Lussac’s law.
The difference of all these laws from the Titius-Bode regularity lies in the fact that some time after their discovery they received a physical justification. Kepler’s laws, for example, were justified by Newton.
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