An alternative way to achieve Kepler's laws of equal areas and ellipses for the Earth

W. Y. Hsiang*, H. C. Chang, H. Yao, P. J. Chen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Kepler's laws of planetary motion are acknowledged as highly significant to the construction of universal gravitation. This paper demonstrates different ways to derive the law of equal areas for the Earth by general geometrical and trigonometric methods, which are much simpler than the original derivation depicted by Kepler. The established law of equal area for the Earth was applied to analyse the angular velocity or the reciprocal of the distance - for the Earth's orbit around the Sun - and can be defined as a periodic function by analysing the available data, which help explain the law of ellipses for the Earth.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1405-1412
Number of pages8
JournalEuropean Journal of Physics
Volume32
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011 Sept

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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