Fibonacci numbers and the Pascal Triangle

 

        

Kepler's Third Law

        

The so named Bode's Law was published as a scientific law by Johann Elert Bode, German astronomer and Director of the Observatory of Berlin. But the study was originally made by Christian Freiherr von Wolf ( 1679 - 1754 ), German mathematician and philosopher, and divulged at 1766 by Johann Daniel Dietz, also known as Titius of Wittenberg ( 1729 - 1796 ), German teacher of physics of the University of Wittenberg, who verified the validity of the Wolf 's calculation. The Titius-Bode Law or Rule is the observation that orbits of planets in the solar system follow a simple arithmetic rule quite closely.

In 1768, Bode published his popular book, "Anleitung zur Kenntnis des gestirnten Himmels" [Instruction for the Knowledge of the Starry Heavens], which was printed in a number of editions. In this book, he stressed an empirical law on planetary distances, originally found by J.D. Titius (1729-96), now called "Bode's Law" or "Titius-Bode Law".

The original formulation was

D = ( n + 4 ) / 10

where n=0,3,6,12,24,48 ...

The modern formulation is that the mean distance a of the planet from the Sun is, in astronomical units ( AUearth = 149.597 *106 km ):

D(K) = [ 3*bin(k) + 4 ]/10

where bin(k)=0,1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128 (sequence of powers of two and 0)

There is a connection between Titius - Bode Law and the Pascal Triangle:

Planet k Pascal Triangle bin(k)
Mercury 1 1 0
Venus 2 1 + 1 1
Earth 3 1 + 2 + 1 2
Mars 4 1 + 3 + 3 + 1 4
Planet V 5 1 + 4 + 6 + 4 + 1 8
Jupiter 6 1+ 5+10+ 10 + 5 + 1 16
Saturn 7 1+6 +15+20+ 15 + 6 + 1 32
Uranus 8 1+7+21+35+35+ 21 + 7 + 1 64
Neptune 9 bin(7) + bin(8) 96
Pluto 9 1+8+28+56+70+56+ 28 + 8 + 1 128

The following table compares the law's predictions with the actual distances, where the addition of Pluto is a modern modification.

Planet k Titius-Bode Law Semi-Major Axis
Mercury 1 0.40 0.39
Venus 2 0.70 0.72
Earth 3 1.00 1.00
Mars 4 1.60 1.52
asteroid belt 5 2.80 2.8
Jupiter 6 5.20 5.20
Saturn 7 10.0 9.54
Uranus 8 19.6 19.2
Neptune - - 30.1
Pluto 9 38.8 39.4


Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630 ) was born to a poor family, whose father finally settled to become a tavern keeper. He was a sickly child, and was withdrawn from school to help in the tavern and as a laborer in the fields. Because his family was Lutheran, Kepler was destined for the ministry. He was sent as a charity student to a protestant seminary, and later to a college where he received a Bachelor`s Degree. His evident intelligence earned him a scholarship to the University of Tubingen, where he studied theology and mathematics, and earned a Master`s Degree in Philosophy.

Kepler learned privately of the heliocentric view, which is the belief that the sun is the center of the planetary system, and other Copernican theories at the university. Kepler was forced to study this view privately because the church, as well as society, was adamant in its belief of the Ptolemaic Theory of a geocentric universe. This theory states that the earth is the center around which the heavenly bodies move. Eventually, he became an outspoken supporter in defense of the Copernican system. After his studies at the university, Kepler became a professor of mathematics. In 1600 he left the teaching profession to work as an assistant to Tycho Brahe, in Prague. It was in Prague, during his tedious study of the orbit of Mars, where Kepler developed his first two laws of planetary motion.

Kepler`s laws are three mathematical statements formulated by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler that accurately describe the revolutions of the planets around the sun. Kepler`s laws opened the way for the development of celestial mechanics, i.e., the application of the laws of physics to the motions of heavenly bodies. His work shows the hallmarks of great scientific theories: simplicity and universality.
The first law states that the shape of each planet`s orbit is an ellipse with the sun at one focus. The sun is thus off-center in the ellipse and the planet`s distance from the sun varies as the planet moves through one orbit. The second law specifies quantitatively how the speed of a planet increases as its distance from the sun decreases. If an imaginary line is drawn from the sun to the planet, the line will sweep out areas in space that are shaped like pie slices. The second law states that the area swept out in equal periods of time is the same at all points in the orbit. When the planet is far from the sun and moving slowly, the pie slice will be long and narrow; when the planet is near the sun and moving fast, the pie slice will be short and fat.
The third law resulted as a searched for a principle with that in mind. The third law states that, "the squares of the periodic times are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances." Kepler announced this law in 1619, fourteen years after the first two laws. It took him years to find the law to describe the distances of the planets to the sun. After much deliberation, Kepler arrived at the law that if T is the period of revolution of any planet and D is its mean distance from the sun, then T squared is equal to k multiplied by D cubed, where k is a constant, which is the same for all the planets. This third law was published in his book, The Harmony of the World.
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This formulation of the Titius Bode Law describe the revolutions of the planets around the sun:

T(k) = [(3*bin(k)+4)/10 ]3/2

where T(k) is in years ...

The following table compares the law's predictions with the actual revolutions of the planets around the sun.

Planet k Titius-Bode Law The actual revolutions
Mercury 1 0.253 0.24
Venus 2 0.586 0.616
Earth 3 1.00 1.00
Mars 4 2.0 1.88
asteroid belt 5 4.68 -
Jupiter 6 11.858 11.86
Saturn 7 31.63 29.23
Uranus 8 86.77 84
Neptune - - 164.9
Pluto 9 245.43 246.57

We assume the next value for the Neptune orbit:
bin( Neptune )= 32 + 64 = 96 = 25 + 26
T(neptune) = 157.79 years.

In the area of very large phenomena when the time period of each planet's revolution around the sun is compared in round numbers to the Pluto`s period, their ratios are Fibonacci numbers:
1 - 1 -2 - 3 - 5 - 8 - 13 - 21 - 34 - 55 - 89 - 144 - 233 - 377 - 610 - 987

Planet days real ratio ideal ratio
Mercury 88 1022 987
Venus 225 400 377
Earth 365 246 233
Mars 687 131 144
asteroid belt 1710 53 55
Jupiter 4332 20.78 21
Saturn 10670 8.4 8
Uranus 30688 2.93 3
Neptune 60193 - -
Pluto 90000 1 1

The orbit of Pluto have some unregularities, what induces some astronomers to belive in the existence of a 10th planet of the Solar System. In accordance to the Bode's Law, was working out a calculation for location the probable position of the supposed 10th planet

D(10)=[3*256 + 4]/10 = 77.2 * 150 *106 km

T(10) = [(3*256 + 4)/10]3/2 years =247582 days

The time period of each planet's revolution around the sun is compared in round numbers to the Planet X`s period:

Planet days real ratio ideal ratio
Mercury 88 2813 2584
Venus 225 1100 987
Earth 365 678 610
Mars 687 361 377
asteroid belt 1710 144.8 144
Jupiter 4332 57 55
Saturn 10670 23.2 21
Uranus 30688 8 8
Neptune 60193 - -
Pluto 90000 2.75 3
Planet X 247582 1 1

This ratios are Fibonacci numbers:
1 - 1 -2 - 3 - 5 - 8 - 13 - 21 - 34 - 55 - 89 - 144 - 233 - 377 - 610 - 987 - 1597 - 2584

See, also :

        

        

        

  2001-2004 Radoslav Jovanovic                 created:  January 2004.