Reading up on Copernicus, Kepler and astronomy gives a good idea I think about what I am getting at. Extrapolation isn't that easy to do with e.g. astronomy. O

Reading up on Copernicus, Kepler and astronomy gives a good idea I think about what I am getting at. Extrapolation isn't that easy to do with e.g. astronomy. Orbits don't go in straight predictable lines. They are ellipses where the speed will vary depending on where you are in the orbit. Kepler found that the are covered per time unit was constant, thus implying that when the orbits were closer to the sun they would speed up. I guess you could say extrapolation was what Kepler tried to do but it took him a lot of work to figure it out. The Chinese while very advance in many respect did not try doing that. What I've read is that they did not have the Judeo-Christian belief that the mind of God could be learned. The laws governing the motions of the heavens was assume inscrutable to the human mind.