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For the Moon, Ptolemy began with Hipparchus' epicycle-on-deferent, then added a device that historians of astronomy refer to as a "crank mechanism": [26] he succeeded in creating models for the other planets, where Hipparchus had failed, by introducing a third device called the equant. Ptolemy wrote the Syntaxis as a textbook of mathematical ...
Despite Ptolemy's prominence as a philosopher, the Dutch historian of science Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis criticizes the Tetrabiblos, stating that "it only remain puzzling that the very writer of the Almagest, who had taught how to develop astronomy from accurate observations and mathematical constructions, could put together such a system of ...
According to one school of thought in the history of astronomy, minor imperfections in the original Ptolemaic system were discovered through observations accumulated over time. It was mistakenly believed that more levels of epicycles (circles within circles) were added to the models to match more accurately the observed planetary motions.
The history of astronomy focuses on the ... Astronomy was the first science to have a ... of mathematics and astronomy. Among the discoveries are: ...
The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the Earth moves', or 'the sun moves and the Earth is at rest', would simply mean two different conventions concerning two ...
Anaximander. The main features of Archaic Greek cosmology are shared with those found in ancient near eastern cosmology.They include (a flat) earth, a heaven (firmament) where the sun, moon, and stars are located, an outer ocean surrounding the inhabited human realm, and the netherworld (), the first three of which corresponded to the gods Ouranos, Gaia, and Oceanus (or Pontos).
The Ptolemaic system of celestial motion as depicted in the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1661). Science in classical antiquity encompasses inquiries into the workings of the world or universe aimed at both practical goals (e.g., establishing a reliable calendar or determining how to cure a variety of illnesses) as well as more abstract investigations belonging to natural philosophy.
Ptolemy's map of the Mediterranean superimposed on a modern map, with Greenwich as the reference longitude. Ptolemy, in the 2nd century AD, based his mapping system on estimated distances and directions reported by travellers. Until then, all maps had used a rectangular grid with latitude and longitude as straight lines intersecting at right ...