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Dear Brad,

You overestimate Babylonian astronomy:-)
They did not even ask the question where it is centered, and how the planets really move in space.

What they did (roughly speaking) is recording the motion of a planet (like 
SHA, but they used anther angle)
as a function of time, and then approximated this by a piecewise-linear function.
This has nothing to do with any "model" in the sense Western science gives to this word.
This was just "fitting the data".

Then you underestimate earth-centered systems:-)
Have you ever noticed that the modern Nautical Almanach uses Earth-centered coordinates?
So they are not so hopelessly backward after all:-)

Alex.
________________________________________
From: NavList@fer3.com [NavList@fer3.com] on behalf of Brad Morris [NoReply_Morris@fer3.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2016 7:29 PM
To: eremenko@math.purdue.edu
Subject: [NavList] Re: Astronomy & math in ancient Babylon

I saw that article and was excited right up until I realized the model 
described was the earth centered solar system.

Bras

On Jan 31, 2016 1:10 PM, "Noell Wilson" > wrote:

The right people looked at come clay tablets in the British Museum and 
recognized that Babylonian astronomers in the 350 to 50 B.C. Period described 
the unique motion of Jupiter across the sky with graphs of position versus 
time. "It was an abstract concept not known elsewhere at the time. 'It 
anticipates integral calculus.' "

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/science/babylonians-clay-tablets-geometry-astronomy-jupiter.html?_r=0

Regards, Noell

   

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