Born: 1760
Died: 1833
Johann Wurm first wrote down, in its commonly recognized mathematical form, what has become known as the Titius-Bode Law. But why stop there? If Titius-Bode really was a physical “law” that predicts the ratios of the distances between planets and the Sun, it should work elsewhere. An example would be the ratios of the distances from a planet to its satellites. In 1787 Wurm produced progressions similar to Titius-Bode that closely matched the distance ratios for the Jupiter and Saturn systems.
Wurm proposed to extend Titius-Bode beyond the eight known planets. The number of planets in Wurm’s Solar System was only limited by the increasingly long periods of such worlds. He thought that any period longer than that of Earth’s precession cycle was unreasonable.
Alternate Name
Vikarius
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Selected Reference
Jaki, Stanley L. (1972). The Early History of the Titius-Bode Law. American Journal of Physics 40(7): 1014–1023.
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(2007). Wurm, Johann Friedrich. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_9159
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