Lecture XIII

GA 354/1924-09-20/p020 ·1924-09-20 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: unknown. How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.

Well, the matter is not quite so simple as that. For since Copernicus propounded his new theory of the universe, everything has become a matter of calculation, and the calculations at that time led to the following conclusion: The sun is taken to be the center of the universe; then come Mercury, Venus, Moon, Earth, and Mars, then the planetoids, then Jupiter, then Saturn. And now the comets and their orbits. And now think of it: the earth is circling and men can calculate when it will reach a certain point where the comet will be approaching it. Bang!—according to the calculations-they will collide. And at that time, gentlemen, they would actually have collided—only the comet was so small that it dissolved in the air! Not exactly in the air over Paris, but somewhere else. The calculation was therefore quite correct, but there was no ground for anxiety.

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Cite: GA 354/1924-09-20/p020 · edition English