Mats Bigert at Cabinet Magazine:
When Tintin is captured by an ancient Inca tribe in his fourteenth adventure, Prisoners of the Sun, he finds an article on his cell floor that forecasts a coming solar eclipse. This will prove to be significant since he, Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus are to be burned at the stake. Tintin manages to see to it that the execution is staged at the right moment. When the Inca Prince of the Sun orders the pyre to be lit, Tintin invokes the Sun God: “O God of the Sun, sublime Pachacamac, display thy power, I implore thee! … If this sacrifice is not thy will, hide thy shining face from us!” In this patronizing Occidental fable of mathematical calculation triumphing over traditional belief, the weather god gives way to the scientist, whose knowledge gives Tintin the power to produce an apparent miracle.
The scientist who made such exact prognostications possible was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler. In 1600, he was hired as an assistant by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and was given the painstaking task of analyzing observations of Mars made by Tycho and compiling them into a new set of astronomical tables.
more here.
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