सिद्धान्तदर्पण (महामहोपाध्याय सामन्त चन्द्रशेखर सिंह - नग्न-नेत्र खगोल वेध एवं गणित महाकोश)

lxviii सिद्धान्त दर्पण
supersitious wit Tycho, a staunch Hindu to the
backbone. How can he disbelieve the Sastras ? And,
besides, “the stars do not shift their places
according to the seasons of the year.”¹
The parallel drawn between Tycho and
Chandrasekhara is close so far. But it fails when we
remember that Tycho had the benefit of a university
education, of the patronage of kings, and what is
more important, that he had instruments as delicate
as he could desire. Chandrasekhara has spent his
life among his native hills, has seldom been five
miles away from his little village and did not receive
any encouragement from anybody in respect of his
work. Tycho had the friendship of Frederick II of
Denmark who gave him an estate in Norway; “a
pension of £400 a year for life, a site for a large
observatory, and 20,000 to build it with,” and
philosophers and statesmen and kings came to visit
his observatory and dined at his table.
And what did our Indian Tycho receive ? He
have. His observations were made shortly before the
invention of the telescope and he could not measure the
minute angles through which the stars were displaced.
In fact, there distances are so great and the parallactic
displacements are so small that the 19th century was well
advanced before astronomers succeeded in finding any
stars with measurable parallaxes.

1. Many of his arguments are dircted against a
   misconception of the new theory. For instance, he argues
   that if the earth be rolling like a wheel, then it ought to
   move only 12,000 Krosa per day; for that is the length of
   the earth's circumference. But you say, its daily motion
   is 8,00,000 Krosa. A stone whirled round has always the
   same face turned towards us; how can there be an
   alternation of day and night by the rotation of the earth,
   and so on.