• DOI:10.1086/368583
• Corpus ID: 144330867

The Counter-Earth

@article{Burch1954TheC,
  title={The Counter-Earth},
  author={George Bosworth Burch},
  journal={Osiris},
  year={1954},
  volume={11},
  pages={267 - 294}
}

• G. Burch
• Published 1 January 1954
• Physics
• Osiris

In the otherwise intelligible Pythagorean system of cosmology, commonly attributed to PHILOLAUS (I), one feature stands out in glaring unintelligibility. That is the theory that, besides the visible planets, there is another planet, the Counter-Earth (71 avTrX6cwv),which owever moves in such a way that it is always below the horizon and so invisible. At first sight this theory seems to be pure whimsey, more worthy of LEWIS CARROLL (2) than of a philosopher, even a pre-Socratic one. Or is it after all what we might expect of the author of the theory that the revolving heavens produce loud music, which, however, being constant, cannot be heard? Were irrational numbers, inaudible sounds, and invisible stars simply the Pythagorean stock in trade? ARISTOTLE proposes two hypotheses to explain this theory. In the Metaphysics (3) he states that the " so-called Pythagoreans " believed there must be ten heavenly bodies because ten is the perfect number, and so, since only nine are apparent (meaning (4) the fixed stars, the seven planets, and the earth, which for PHILO-