Mechanical Astronomy: A Route to the Ancient Discovery of Epicycles and Eccentrics

James Evans and Christián Carlos Cannan

A chapter in From Alexandria, Through Baghdad, 2014, pp 145-174 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The ancient Greek art of spbairopoiia was devoted to the building of models of the universe such as celestial globes and annillary spheres. But it also included the construction of geared mechanisms that replicated the motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets, such as the famous orrery that Cicero attributed to Archimedes or the spectacular Antikythera mechanism, found in an ancient shipwreck of about 60 BC. Was sphairopoiia merely an imitative art, in which the modelers followed the precepts of the theoretical astronomers? Or could theoretical astronomy also learn something from the art of mechanics? In this paper, we examine the relation of astronomy to mechanics in the ancient Greek world, and argue that we should imagine astronomy and mechanics in conversation with one another, rather than in a simple, one-way transmission of influence.

Keywords: Fiducial Mark; Friction Wheel; Lunar Theory; Nonuniform Motion; Planetary Theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-36736-6_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783642367366

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-36736-6_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().