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The Antikythera mechanism (/ ˌ æ n t ɪ k ɪ ˈ θ ɪər ə / AN-tik-ih-THEER-ə, US also / ˌ æ n t aɪ k ɪ ˈ-/ AN-ty-kih-) [1] [2] is an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery (model of the Solar System). It is the oldest known example of an analogue computer. [3] [4] [5] It could be used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades ...
A new two-sphere model of the solar system was proposed, and, for the first time, explanations for planetary observations were posited in the form of geometric theories. [22] The two-sphere model posits that heaven and earth are a pair of concentric spheres.
Aristarchus of Samos (/ ˌ æ r ə ˈ s t ɑːr k ə s /; Ancient Greek: Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ Σάμιος, Aristarkhos ho Samios; c. 310 – c. 230 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the universe, with the Earth revolving around the Sun once a year and rotating about its axis once a day.
The ancient Hebrews, like all the ancient peoples of the Near East, believed the sky was a solid dome with the Sun, Moon, planets and stars embedded in it. [4] In biblical cosmology, the firmament is the vast solid dome created by God during his creation of the world to divide the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear.
Greek astronomers such as Geminus [1] and Ptolemy [2] recorded these classical planets during classical antiquity, introducing the term planet, which means 'wanderer' in Greek (πλάνης planēs and πλανήτης planētēs), expressing the fact that these objects move across the celestial sphere relative to the fixed stars.
In Greek antiquity the ideas of celestial spheres and rings first appeared in the cosmology of Anaximander in the early 6th century BC. [7] In his cosmology both the Sun and Moon are circular open vents in tubular rings of fire enclosed in tubes of condensed air; these rings constitute the rims of rotating chariot-like wheels pivoting on the Earth at their centre.
The imagery surrounding a chariot-driving solar deity is likely Indo-European in origin. [13] [14] [15] Greek solar imagery begins with the gods Helios and Eos, who are brother and sister, and who become in the day-and-night-cycle the day (hemera) and the evening (hespera), as Eos accompanies Helios in his journey across the skies. At night, he ...
Another problem is that the models themselves discouraged tinkering. In a deferent-and-epicycle model, the parts of the whole are interrelated. A change in a parameter to improve the fit in one place would throw off the fit somewhere else. Ptolemy's model is probably optimal in this regard.