history of science guru come in!!

[Semidevil]

ok, here is a question that I was wondering to let you think about:

Imagine you are an advisor to the King of England in 1690. His Majesty wishes to appoint an Astronomer Royal. There are two candidates: a follower of Tycho Brahe and a follower of Isaac Newton. Who would you advise?

ok, so I know both about these guys...Brahe's idea was a mix of copernican and ptoleomy, and Newtons ideas were very mathamatical and is the more "modern" idea....(sun in center)

What I"m stumped on is the 1690 part. Was there a belief in the 1690s that should hint that I need to pick one guy over the other? I can't think of anything that happened in the 1690, or the belief of that time.

 

[FoBoT]

maybe something to do with navigation?

there was a show on pbs or history channel or one of those yesterday about an english guy, harrison, who was a clock maker that helped solve the "longitude" problem by using time/clocks. there was a completing camp led by newton that said the only solution to the longitude problem was using astronomy/stars

but 1690 might be a bit too early. i think the show started out with some big naval disaster around 1700

i dunno