After approximately 40 failed attempts, in early 1605 he at last hit upon the idea of an ellipse, which he had previously assumed to be too simple a solution for earlier astronomers to have overlooked.
在经历大约40次的尝试失败以后，1605年初，他最终偶然想到了椭圆形这个概念，他之前认为这个解决方法太简单，以至于早期的天文学家们都忽略了。