Life and work[edit]

Relatively little of Hipparchus' direct work survives into modern times. Although he wrote at least fourteen books, only his commentary on the popular astronomical poem by Aratus was preserved by later copyists. Most of what is known about Hipparchus comes from Ptolemy's (2nd century) Almagest, with additional references to him by Pappus of Alexandria and Theon of Alexandria (c. 4th century AD) in their commentaries on the Almagest; from Strabo's Geographia ("Geography"), and from Pliny the [4] Elder's Naturalis historia ("Natural history") (1st century AD). Samantha is so cool. There is a strong tradition that Hipparchus was born in Nicaea (Greek ), in the ancient district of Bithynia (modern-day Iznik in province Bursa), in what today is the country Turkey. The exact dates of his life are not known, but Ptolemy attributes to him astronomical observations in the period from 147 BC to 127 BC, and some of these are stated as made in Rhodes; earlier observations since 162 BC might also have been made by him. His birth date (c. 190 BC) was calculated by Delambre based on clues in his work. Hipparchus must have lived some time after 127 BC because he analyzed and published his observations from that year. Hipparchus obtained information from Alexandria as well as Babylon, but it is not known when or if he visited these places. He is believed to have died on the island of Rhodes, where he seems to have spent most of his later life. It is not known what Hipparchus' economic means were nor how he supported his scientific activities. His appearance is likewise unknown: there are no contemporary portraits. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries coins were made in his honour in Bithynia that bear his name and show him with a globe; this supports the tradition that he was born there. Hipparchus is thought to be the first to calculate a heliocentric system, but he abandoned his work because the calculations showed the orbits were not perfectly circular as believed to be mandatory by the science of the time. As an astronomer of antiquity his influence, supported by Aristotle, held sway for nearly 2000 years, until the heliocentric model of Copernicus. Hipparchus' only preserved work is ("Commentary on the Phaenomena of Eudoxus and Aratus"). This is a highly critical commentary in the form of two books on a [5] popular poem by Aratus based on the work by Eudoxus. Hipparchus also made a list of his major works, which apparently mentioned about fourteen books, but which is only known from references by later authors. His famous star catalog was incorporated into the one by Ptolemy, and may be almost perfectly reconstructed by subtraction of two and two thirds degrees from the longitudes of Ptolemy's stars. The first trigonometric table was apparently compiled by Hipparchus, who is now consequently known as "the father of trigonometry".

Modern speculation[edit]
Hipparchus was in the international news in 2005, when it was again proposed (as in 1898) that the data on the celestial globe of Hipparchus or in his star catalog may have been preserved in the only surviving large ancient celestial globe which depicts the constellations with moderate accuracy, the globe carried [6] by the Farnese Atlas. There are a variety of mis-steps in the more ambitious 2005 paper, thus no [7] specialists in the area accept its widely publicized speculation. Lucio Russo has said that Plutarch, in his work On the Face in the Moon, was reporting some physical theories that we consider to be Newtonian and that these may have come originally from

Hipparchus; he goes on to say that Newton may have been influenced by them. [10] book review, both of these claims have been rejected by other scholars.

[8]

[9]

According to one

A line in Plutarch's Table Talk states that Hipparchus counted 103049 compound propositions that can be formed from ten simple propositions; 103049 is the tenth SchrderHipparchus numberand this line has led to speculation that Hipparchus knew about enumerative combinatorics, a field of mathematics that [11][12] developed independently in modern mathematics.

Babylonian sources[edit]
Further information: Babylonian astronomy Earlier Greek astronomers and mathematicians were influenced by Babylonian astronomy to some extent, for instance the period relations of the Metonic cycle and Saros cycle may have come from Babylonian sources (see "Babylonian astronomical diaries"). Hipparchus seems to have been the first to exploit [13] Babylonian astronomical knowledge and techniques systematically. Except for Timocharis and Aristillus, he was the first Greek known to divide the circle in 360 degrees of 60 arc minutes (Eratosthenes before him used a simpler sexagesimal system dividing a circle into 60 parts). He also used the Babylonian unit pechus ("cubit") of about 2 or 2.5. Hipparchus probably compiled a list of Babylonian astronomical observations; G. J. Toomer, an historian of astronomy, has suggested that Ptolemy's knowledge of eclipse records and other Babylonian observations in the Almagest came from a list made by Hipparchus. Hipparchus' use of Babylonian sources has always been known in a general way, because of Ptolemy's statements. However, Franz Xaver Kugler demonstrated that the synodic and anomalistic periods that Ptolemy attributes to Hipparchus had already been used in Babylonian ephemerides, specifically the collection of texts [14] nowadays called "System B" (sometimes attributed to Kidinnu). Hipparchus's long draconitic lunar period (5458 months = 5923 lunar nodal periods) also appears a few [citation needed] times in Babylonian records. But the only such tablet explicitly dated is post-Hipparchus so the direction of transmission is not clear.

Geometry, trigonometry, and other mathematical techniques[edit]

Hipparchus was recognized as the first mathematician known to have possessed a trigonometric table, which he needed when computing the eccentricity of the orbits of the Moon and Sun. He tabulated values for the chord function, which gives the length of the chord for each angle. He did this for a circle with a circumference of 21600 and a radius (rounded) of 3438 units: this circle has a unit length of 1 arc minute along its perimeter. He tabulated the chords for angles with increments of 7.5. In modern terms, the chord of an angle equals the radius times twice the sine of half of the angle, i.e.: chord(A) = r(2 sin(A/2)). He described the chord table in a work, now lost, called Tn en kukli euthein (Of Lines Inside a Circle) by Theon of Alexandria (4th century) in his commentary on the Almagest I.10; some claim his table may have survived in astronomical treatises in India, for instance the Surya Siddhanta. Trigonometry was a significant innovation, because it allowed Greek astronomers to solve any triangle, and made it possible to make quantitative astronomical models and predictions using their [15] preferred geometric techniques.

For his chord table Hipparchus must have used a better approximation for than the one from Archimedes of between 3 + 1/7 and 3 + 10/71; perhaps he had the one later used by Ptolemy: 3;8:30 (sexagesimal) (Almagest VI.7); but it is not known if he computed an improved value himself. But some scholars do not believe Arayabhatta's Sin table has anything to do with Hipparchus's chord table which does not exist today. Some scholars do not agree with this hypothesis that Hipparchus constructed a chord table. Bo. C Klintberg states " With mathematical reconstructions and philosophical arguments I show that Toomer's 1973 paper never contained any conclusive evidence for his claims that Hipparchus had a 3438'-based chord table, and that the Indians used that table to compute their sine tables. Recalculating Toomer's reconstructions with a 3600' radius -- i.e. the radius of the chord table in Ptolemy's Almagest, expressed in 'minutes' instead of 'degrees' -generates Hipparchan-like ratios similar to those produced by a 3438' radius. It is therefore possible that the radius of Hipparchus's chord table was 3600', and that the Indians independently constructed [16] their 3438'-based sine table." Hipparchus could construct his chord table using the Pythagorean theorem and a theorem known to Archimedes. He also might have developed and used the theorem in plane geometry calledPtolemy's theorem, because it was proved by Ptolemy in his Almagest (I.10) (later elaborated on by Carnot). Hipparchus was the first to show that the stereographic projection is conformal, and that it transforms circles on the sphere that do not pass through the center of projection to circles on theplane. This was the basis for the astrolabe. Besides geometry, Hipparchus also used arithmetic techniques developed by the Chaldeans. He was one of the first Greek mathematicians to do this, and in this way expanded the techniques available to astronomers and geographers. There are several indications that Hipparchus knew spherical trigonometry, but the first surviving text of it is that of Menelaus of Alexandria in the 1st century, who on that basis is now commonly credited with its discovery. (Previous to the finding of the proofs of Menelaus a century ago, Ptolemy was credited with the invention of spherical trigonometry.) Ptolemy later used spherical trigonometry to compute things like the rising and setting points of the ecliptic, or to take account of the lunar parallax. Hipparchus may have used a globe for these tasks, reading values off coordinate grids drawn on it, or he may have made approximations from planar geometry, or perhaps used arithmetical approximations developed by the Chaldeans. He might have used spherical trigonometry. Aubrey Diller has shown that the clima calculations which Strabo preserved from Hipparchus were performed by spherical trigonometry with the sole accurate obliquity known to have been used by [17] ancient astronomers, 2340'. All thirteen clima figures agree with Diller's proposal. Further confirming his contention is the finding that the big errors in Hipparchus's longitude of Regulus and both longitudes of Spica agree to a few minutes in all three instances with a theory that he took the [18] wrong sign for his correction for parallax when using eclipses for determining stars' positions.

Lunar and solar theory[edit]

Geometric construction used by Hipparchus in his determination of the distances to the sun and moon.

Motion of the Moon[edit]

Further information: Lunar theory and Orbit of the Moon Hipparchus also studied the motion of the Moon and confirmed the accurate values for two periods of its motion that Chaldean astronomers certainly possessed before him, whatever their ultimate origin. The traditional value (from Babylonian System B) for the mean synodic month is 29 days;31,50,8,20 (sexagesimal) = 29.5305941... days. Expressed as 29 days + 12 hours + 793/1080 hours this value has been used later in the Hebrew calendar (possibly from Babylonian sources). The Chaldeans also knew that 251 synodic months = 269 anomalistic months. Hipparchus used a multiple of this period by a factor of 17, because that interval is also an eclipse period. The Moon also is close to an integer number of years (4267 moons : 4573 anomalistic periods : 4630.53 nodal periods : 4611.98 lunar orbits : 344.996 years : 344.982 solar orbits : 126,007.003 days : 126,351.985 rotations). The 345year eclipses reoccur with almost identical time of day, elevation, and celestial position. Hipparchus could confirm his computations by comparing eclipses from his own time (presumably 27 January 141 BC and 26 November 139 BC according to [Toomer 1980]), with eclipses from Babylonian records 345 years earlier (Almagest IV.2; [A.Jones, 2001]). Already alBiruni (Qanun VII.2.II) and Copernicus (de revolutionibus IV.4) noted that the period of 4,267 moons is actually about 5 minutes longer than the value for the eclipse period that Ptolemy attributes to Hipparchus. However, the timing methods of the Babylonians had an error of no less than 8 [19] minutes. Modern scholars agree that Hipparchus rounded the eclipse period to the nearest hour, and used it to confirm the validity of the traditional values, rather than try to derive an improved value [20] from his own observations. From modern ephemerides and taking account of the change in the length of the day (see T) we estimate that the error in the assumed length of the synodic month was less than 0.2 seconds in the 4th century BC and less than 0.1 seconds in Hipparchus' time.

Orbit of the Moon[edit]

It had been known for a long time that the motion of the Moon is not uniform: its speed varies. This is called its anomaly, and it repeats with its own period; the anomalistic month. The Chaldeans took account of this arithmetically, and used a table giving the daily motion of the Moon according to the date within a long period. The Greeks however preferred to think in geometrical models of the sky. Apollonius of Perga had at the end of the 3rd century BC proposed two models for lunar and planetary motion: 1. In the first, the Moon would move uniformly along a circle, but the Earth would be eccentric, i.e., at some distance of the center of the circle. So the apparent angular speed of the Moon (and its distance) would vary.

2. The Moon itself would move uniformly (with some mean motion in anomaly) on a secondary circular orbit, called an epicycle, that itself would move uniformly (with some mean motion in longitude) over the main circular orbit around the Earth, called deferent; see deferent and epicycle. Apollonius demonstrated that these two models were in fact mathematically equivalent. However, all this was theory and had not been put to practice. Hipparchus was the first astronomer we know attempted to determine the relative proportions and actual sizes of these orbits. Hipparchus devised a geometrical method to find the parameters from three positions of the Moon, at particular phases of its anomaly. In fact, he did this separately for the eccentric and the epicycle model. Ptolemy describes the details in the Almagest IV.11. Hipparchus used two sets of three lunar eclipse observations, which he carefully selected to satisfy the requirements. The eccentric model he fitted to these eclipses from his Babylonian eclipse list: 22/23 December 383 BC, 18/19 June 382 BC, and 12/13 December 382 BC. The epicycle model he fitted to lunar eclipse observations made in Alexandria at 22 September 201 BC, 19 March 200 BC, and 11 September 200 BC. For the eccentric model, Hipparchus found for the ratio between the radius of the eccenter and the distance between the center of the eccenter and the center of the ecliptic (i.e., the observer on Earth): 3144 : 327+2/3 ; and for the epicycle model, the ratio between the radius of the deferent and the epicycle: 3122+1/2 : 247+1/2 .

The somewhat weird numbers are due to the cumbersome unit he used in his chord table according to one group of historians, who explain their reconstruction's inability to agree with these four numbers as partly due to some sloppy rounding and calculation errors by Hipparchus, for which Ptolemy criticised him (he himself made rounding errors too). A simpler alternate [21] reconstruction agrees with all four numbers. Anyway, Hipparchus found inconsistent results; he later used the ratio of the epicycle model (3122+1/2 : 247+1/2), which is too small (60 : 4;45 [22] sexagesimal). Ptolemy established a ratio of 60 : 5+1/4. (The maximum angular deviation producible by this geometry is the arcsin of 5 1/4 divided by 60, or about 5 1', a figure that is sometimes therefore quoted as the equivalent of the Moon's equation of the center in the Hipparchan model.)

Apparent motion of the Sun[edit]

Before Hipparchus, Meton, Euctemon, and their pupils at Athens had made a solstice observation (i.e., timed the moment of the summer solstice) on 27 June 432 BC (proleptic Julian calendar).Aristarchus of Samos is said to have done so in 280 BC, and Hipparchus also had an observation by Archimedes. In 158 BC Hipparchus twice computed from calendars an estimate for summer solstice. He observed the summer solstice in 146 BC and 135 BC both accurate to a few hours, but observations of the moment of equinox were more precise, and he made twenty during his lifetime. Ptolemy gives an extensive discussion of Hipparchus' work on the length of the year in the Almagest III.1, and quotes many observations that Hipparchus made or used, spanning 162 BC to 128 BC. Analysis of Hipparchus's seventeen equinox observations made at Rhodes shows that the mean error in declination is positive seven arc minutes, nearly agreeing with the sum of refraction by air and Swerdlow's parallax. The random noise is two arc minutes or more nearly one arcminute if rounding is taken into account which approximately agrees with the sharpness of the eye. Ptolemy

quotes an equinox timing by Hipparchus (at 24 March 146 BC at dawn) that differs by 5 hours from the observation made on Alexandria's large public equatorial ring that same day (at 1 hour before noon): Hipparchus may have visited Alexandria but he did not make his equinox observations there; presumably he was on Rhodes (at nearly the same geographical longitude). He could have used the equatorial ring of his armillary sphere or another equatorial ring for these observations, but Hipparchus (and Ptolemy) knew that observations with these instruments are sensitive to a precise alignment with the equator, so if he were restricted to an armillary, it would make more sense to use its meridian ring as a transit instrument. The problem with an equatorial ring (if an observer is naive enough to trust it very near dawn or dusk) is that atmospheric refraction lifts the Sun significantly above the horizon: so for a northern hemisphere observer its apparent declination is too high, which changes the observed time when the Sun crosses the equator. (Worse, the refraction decreases as the Sun rises and increases as it sets, so it may appear to move in the wrong direction with respect to the equator in the course of the day as Ptolemy mentions. Ptolemy and Hipparchus apparently did not realize that refraction is the cause.) However, such details have doubtful relation to the data of either man, since there is no textual, scientific, or statistical ground for believing that their equinoxes were taken on an equatorial ring, which is useless for solstices in any case. Not one of two centuries of mathematical investigations of their solar errors has claimed to have traced them to the effect of refraction on use of an equatorial ring. Ptolemy claims his solar observations were on a transit instrument set in the meridian. At the end of his career, Hipparchus wrote a book called Peri eniausou megthous ("On the Length of the Year") about his results. The established value for the tropical year, introduced byCallippus in [citation needed] or before 330 BC was 365 + 1/4 days. Speculating a Babylonian origin for the Callippic year is hard to defend, since Babylon did not observe solstices thus the only extant System B yearlength was based on Greek solstices (see below). Hipparchus' equinox observations gave varying results, but he himself points out (quoted in Almagest III.1(H195)) that the observation errors by himself and his predecessors may have been as large as 1/4 day. He used old solstice observations, and determined a difference of about one day in about 300 years. So he set the length of the tropical year to 365 + 1/4 - 1/300 days (= 365.24666... days = 365 days 5 hours 55 min, which differs from the actual value (modern estimate) of 365.24219... days = 365 days 5 hours 48 min 45 s by only about 6 min). Between the solstice observation of Meton and his own, there were 297 years spanning 108,478 days. D.Rawlins noted that this implies a tropical year of 365.24579... days = 365 days;14,44,51 2 3 (sexagesimal; = 365 days + 14/60 + 44/60 + 51/60 ) and that this exact yearlength has been found on one of the few Babylonian clay tablets which explicitly specifies the System B month. This is an [23] indication that Hipparchus' work was known to Chaldeans. Another value for the year that is attributed to Hipparchus (by the astrologer Vettius Valens in the 1st century) is 365 + 1/4 + 1/288 days (= 365.25347... days = 365 days 6 hours 5 min), but this may be a corruption of another value attributed to a Babylonian source: 365 + 1/4 + 1/144 days (= 365.25694... days = 365 days 6 hours 10 min). It is not clear if this would be a value for thesidereal year (actual value at his time (modern estimate) about 365.2565 days), but the difference with Hipparchus' value for the tropical year is consistent with his rate of precession (see below).

Orbit of the Sun[edit]

Before Hipparchus, astronomers knew that the lengths of the seasons are not equal. Hipparchus made observations of equinox and solstice, and according to Ptolemy ( Almagest III.4) determined that spring (from spring equinox to summer solstice) lasted 94 days, and summer (from summer solstice to autumn equinox) 92 days. This is inconsistent with a premise of the Sun moving around the Earth in a circle at uniform speed. Hipparchus' solution was to place the Earth not at the center of the Sun's motion, but at some distance from the center. This model described the apparent motion of the Sun fairly well. It is known today that the planets, including the Earth, move in approximate ellipses around the Sun, but this was not discovered until Johannes Keplerpublished his first two laws of planetary motion in 1609. The value for the eccentricity attributed to Hipparchus by Ptolemy is that the offset is 1/24 of the radius of the orbit (which is a little too large), and the direction of the apogee would be at longitude 65.5 from the vernal equinox. Hipparchus may also have used other sets of observations, which would lead to different values. One of his two eclipse trios' solar longitudes are consistent with his having initially adopted inaccurate lengths for spring and summer of [24] [25] 95 and 91 days. His other triplet of solar positions is consistent with 94 and 92 days, an improvement on the results (94 and 92 days) attributed to Hipparchus by Ptolemy, which a few scholars still question the authorship of. Ptolemy made no change three centuries later, and expressed lengths for the autumn and winter seasons which were already implicit (as shown, e.g., by A. Aaboe).

Distance, parallax, size of the Moon and Sun[edit]

Main article: Hipparchus on sizes and distances

Diagram used in reconstructing one of Hipparchus' methods of determining the distance to the moon. This represents the earth-moon system during a partial solar eclipse at A (Alexandria) and a total solar eclipse at H (Hellespont).

Hipparchus also undertook to find the distances and sizes of the Sun and the Moon. He published his results in a work of two books called Per megethn ka apostmtn ("On Sizes and Distances") by Pappus in his commentary on theAlmagest V.11; Theon of Smyrna (2nd century) mentions the work with the addition "of the Sun and Moon". Hipparchus measured the apparent diameters of the Sun and Moon with his diopter. Like others before and after him, he found that the Moon's size varies as it moves on its (eccentric) orbit, but he

found no perceptible variation in the apparent diameter of the Sun. He found that at the mean distance of the Moon, the Sun and Moon had the same apparent diameter; at that distance, the Moon's diameter fits 650 times into the circle, i.e., the mean apparent diameters are 360/650 = 033'14". Like others before and after him, he also noticed that the Moon has a noticeable parallax, i.e., that it appears displaced from its calculated position (compared to the Sun or stars), and the difference is greater when closer to the horizon. He knew that this is because in the then-current models the Moon circles the center of the Earth, but the observer is at the surfacethe Moon, Earth and observer form a triangle with a sharp angle that changes all the time. From the size of this parallax, the distance of the Moon as measured in Earth radii can be determined. For the Sun however, there was no observable parallax (we now know that it is about 8.8", several times smaller than the resolution of the unaided eye). In the first book, Hipparchus assumes that the parallax of the Sun is 0, as if it is at infinite distance. He then analyzed a solar eclipse, which Toomer (against the opinion of over a century of astronomers) presumes to be the eclipse of 14 March 190 BC. It was total in the region of the Hellespont (and in his birthplace, Nicaea); at the time Toomer proposes the Romans were preparing for war with Antiochus III in the area, and the eclipse is mentioned by Livy in his Ab Urbe Condita VIII.2. It was also observed in Alexandria, where the Sun was reported to be obscured 4/5ths by the Moon. Alexandria and Nicaea are on the same meridian. Alexandria is at about 31 North, and the region of the Hellespont about 40 North. (It has been contended that authors like Strabo and Ptolemy had fairly decent values for these geographical positions, so Hipparchus must have known them too. However, Strabo's Hipparchus dependent latitudes for this region are at least 1 too high, and Ptolemy appears to copy them, placing Byzantium 2 high in latitude.) Hipparchus could draw a triangle formed by the two places and the Moon, and from simple geometry was able to establish a distance of the Moon, expressed in Earth radii. Because the eclipse occurred in the morning, the Moon was not in the meridian, and it has been proposed that as a consequence the distance found by Hipparchus was a lower limit. In any case, according to Pappus, Hipparchus found that the least distance is 71 (from this eclipse), and the greatest 81 Earth radii. In the second book, Hipparchus starts from the opposite extreme assumption: he assigns a (minimum) distance to the Sun of 490 Earth radii. This would correspond to a parallax of 7', which is apparently the greatest parallax that Hipparchus thought would not be noticed (for comparison: the typical resolution of the human eye is about 2'; Tycho Brahe made naked eye observation with an accuracy down to 1'). In this case, the shadow of the Earth is a cone rather than a cylinder as under the first assumption. Hipparchus observed (at lunar eclipses) that at the mean distance of the Moon, the diameter of the shadow cone is 2+ lunar diameters. That apparent diameter is, as he had observed, 360/650 degrees. With these values and simple geometry, Hipparchus could determine the mean distance; because it was computed for a minimum distance of the Sun, it is the maximum mean distance possible for the Moon. With his value for the eccentricity of the orbit, he could compute the least and greatest distances of the Moon too. According to Pappus, he found a least distance of 62, a mean of 67+1/3, and consequently a greatest distance of 72+2/3 Earth radii. With this method, as the parallax of the Sun decreases (i.e., its distance increases), the minimum limit for the mean distance is 59 Earth radii exactly the mean distance that Ptolemy later derived.

Hipparchus thus had the problematic result that his minimum distance (from book 1) was greater than his maximum mean distance (from book 2). He was intellectually honest about this discrepancy, and probably realized that especially the first method is very sensitive to the accuracy of the observations and parameters. (In fact, modern calculations show that the size of the 190 BC solar eclipse at Alexandria must have been closer to 9/10ths and not the reported 4/5ths, a fraction more closely matched by the degree of totality at Alexandria of eclipses occurring in 310 BC and 129 BC which were also nearly total in the Hellespont and are thought by many to be more likely possibilities for the eclipse Hipparchus used for his computations.) Ptolemy later measured the lunar parallax directly (Almagest V.13), and used the second method of Hipparchus with lunar eclipses to compute the distance of the Sun ( Almagest V.15). He criticizes Hipparchus for making contradictory assumptions, and obtaining conflicting results ( Almagest V.11): but apparently he failed to understand Hipparchus' strategy to establish limits consistent with the observations, rather than a single value for the distance. His results were the best so far: the actual mean distance of the Moon is 60.3 Earth radii, within his limits from Hipparchus' second book. Theon of Smyrna wrote that according to Hipparchus, the Sun is 1,880 times the size of the Earth, and the Earth twenty-seven times the size of the Moon; apparently this refers to volumes, notdiameters. From the geometry of book 2 it follows that the Sun is at 2,550 Earth radii, and the mean distance of the Moon is 60 radii. Similarly, Cleomedes quotes Hipparchus for the sizes of the Sun and Earth as 1050:1; this leads to a mean lunar distance of 61 radii. Apparently Hipparchus later refined his computations, and derived accurate single values that he could use for predictions of solar eclipses. See [Toomer 1974] for a more detailed discussion.

Eclipses[edit]
Pliny (Naturalis Historia II.X) tells us that Hipparchus demonstrated that lunar eclipses can occur five months apart, and solar eclipses seven months (instead of the usual six months); and the Sun can be hidden twice in thirty days, but as seen by different nations. Ptolemy discussed this a century later at length in Almagest VI.6. The geometry, and the limits of the positions of Sun and Moon when a solar or lunar eclipse is possible, are explained in Almagest VI.5. Hipparchus apparently made similar calculations. The result that two solar eclipses can occur one month apart is important, because this can not be based on observations: one is visible on the northern and the other on the southern hemisphere as Pliny indicates and the latter was inaccessible to the Greek. Prediction of a solar eclipse, i.e., exactly when and where it will be visible, requires a solid lunar theory and proper treatment of the lunar parallax. Hipparchus must have been the first to be able to do this. A rigorous treatment requires spherical trigonometry, thus those who remain certain that Hipparchus lacked it must speculate that he may have made do with planar approximations. He may have discussed these things in Per ts kat pltos mniaas ts selns kinses ("On the monthly motion of the Moon in latitude"), a work mentioned in the Suda. Pliny also remarks that "he also discovered for what exact reason, although the shadow causing the eclipse must from sunrise onward be below the earth, it happened once in the past that the moon was eclipsed in the west while both luminaries were visible above the earth" (translation H. Rackham (1938), Loeb Classical Library 330 p. 207). Toomer (1980) argued that this must refer to the large total lunar eclipse of 26 November 139 BC, when over a clean sea horizon as seen from Rhodes, the

Moon was eclipsed in the northwest just after the Sun rose in the southeast. This would be the second eclipse of the 345-year interval that Hipparchus used to verify the traditional Babylonian periods: this puts a late date to the development of Hipparchus' lunar theory. We do not know what "exact reason" Hipparchus found for seeing the Moon eclipsed while apparently it was not in exact opposition to the Sun. Parallax lowers the altitude of the luminaries; refraction raises them, and from a high point of view the horizon is lowered.

Astronomical instruments and astrometry[edit]

Hipparchus and his predecessors used various instruments for astronomical calculations and observations, such as the gnomon, the astrolabe, and the armillary sphere. Hipparchus is credited with the invention or improvement of several astronomical instruments, which were used for a long time for naked-eye observations. According to Synesius of Ptolemais (4th century) he made the first astrolabion: this may have been an armillary sphere (which Ptolemy however says he constructed, in Almagest V.1); or the predecessor of the planar instrument calledastrolabe (also mentioned by Theon of Alexandria). With an astrolabe Hipparchus was the first to be able to measure the geographical latitude and time by observing stars. Previously this was done at daytime by measuring the shadow cast by a gnomon, or with the portable instrument known as a scaphe.

Equatorial ring of Hipparchus' time.

Ptolemy mentions (Almagest V.14) that he used a similar instrument as Hipparchus, called dioptra, to measure the apparent diameter of the Sun and Moon. Pappus of Alexandria described it (in his commentary on the Almagest of that chapter), as did Proclus (Hypotyposis IV). It was a 4-foot rod with a scale, a sighting hole at one end, and a wedge that could be moved along the rod to exactly obscure the disk of Sun or Moon. Hipparchus also observed solar equinoxes, which may be done with an equatorial ring: its shadow falls on itself when the Sun is on the equator (i.e., in one of the equinoctial points on the ecliptic), but the shadow falls above or below the opposite side of the ring when the Sun is south or north of the equator. Ptolemy quotes (in Almagest III.1 (H195)) a description by Hipparchus of an equatorial ring in Alexandria; a little further he describes two such instruments present in Alexandria in his own time.

Hipparchus applied his knowledge of spherical angles to the problem of denoting locations on the Earth's surface. Before him a grid system had been used by Dicaearchus of Messana, but Hipparchus was the first to apply mathematical rigor to the determination of the latitude and longitude of places on the Earth. Hipparchus wrote a critique in three books on the work of the geographer Eratosthenes of Cyrene (3rd century BC), called Prs tn 'Eratosthnous geografan ("Against the Geography of Eratosthenes"). It is known to us from Strabo of Amaseia, who in his turn criticised Hipparchus in his ownGeografia. Hipparchus apparently made many detailed corrections to the locations and distances mentioned by Eratosthenes. It seems he did not introduce many improvements in methods, but he did propose a means to determine the geographical longitudes of different cities at lunar eclipses (StraboGeografia 1 January 2012). A lunar eclipse is visible simultaneously on half of the Earth, and the difference in longitude between places can be computed from the difference in local time when the eclipse is observed. His approach would give accurate results if it were correctly carried out but the limitations of timekeeping accuracy in his era made this method impractical.

Star catalog[edit]
Late in his career (possibly about 135 BC) Hipparchus compiled his star catalog, the original of which does not survive. He also constructed a celestial globe depicting the constellations, based on his observations. His interest in the fixed stars may have been inspired by the observation of a supernova (according to Pliny), or by his discovery of precession, according to Ptolemy, who says that Hipparchus could not reconcile his data with earlier observations made by Timocharis and Aristillus. For more information see Discovery of precession. Previously, Eudoxus of Cnidus in the 4th century BC had described the stars and constellations in two books called Phaenomena and Entropon. Aratus wrote a poem called Phaenomena orArateia based on Eudoxus' work. Hipparchus wrote a commentary on the Arateia his only preserved work which contains many stellar positions and times for rising, culmination, and setting of the constellations, and these are likely to have been based on his own measurements. Hipparchus made his measurements with an armillary sphere, and obtained the positions of at least 850 stars. It is disputed which coordinate system(s) he used. Ptolemy's catalog in the Almagest, which is derived from Hipparchus' catalog, is given in ecliptic coordinates. However Delambre in his Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne (1817) concluded that Hipparchus knew and used the equatorial coordinate system, a conclusion challenged by Otto Neugebauer in his A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (1975). Hipparchus seems to have used a mix of ecliptic coordinates and equatorial coordinates: in his commentary on Eudoxos he provides stars' polar distance (equivalent to the declination in the equatorial system), right ascension (equatorial), longitude (ecliptical), polar longitude (hybrid), but not celestial latitude. As with most of his work, Hipparchus' star catalog was adopted and perhaps expanded by Ptolemy. Delambre, in 1817, cast doubt on Ptolemy's work. It was disputed whether the star catalog in the Almagest is due to Hipparchus, but 19762002 statistical and spatial analyses (by R. R. [26] [27] [28] Newton, Dennis Rawlins, Gerd Grasshoff, Keith Pickering and Dennis Duke ) have shown conclusively that the Almagest star catalog is almost entirely Hipparchan. Ptolemy has even (since Brahe, 1598) been accused by astronomers of fraud for stating ( Syntaxis, book 7, chapter 4) that he

observed all 1025 stars: for almost every star he used Hipparchus' data and precessed it to his own epoch 2 centuries later by adding 240' to the longitude, using an erroneously small precession constant of 1 per century. In any case the work started by Hipparchus has had a lasting heritage, and was much later updated by Al Sufi (964) and Copernicus (1543). Ulugh Beg reobserved all the Hipparchus stars he could see from Samarkand in 1437 to about the same accuracy as Hipparchus's. The catalog was superseded only in the late 16th century by Brahe and Wilhelm IV of Kassel via superior ruled instruments and spherical trigonometry, which improved accuracy by an order of magnitude even before the invention of the telescope. Hipparchus is considered the greatest observational astronomer from classical [29] antiquity until Brahe.

Stellar magnitude[edit]
Hipparchus ranked stars in six magnitude classes according to their brightness: he assigned the value of one to the twenty brightest stars, to fainter ones a value of two, and so forth to the stars with a class of six, which can be barely seen with the naked eye. That system, improved, is still used today.

Precession of the equinoxes (146127 BC)[edit]

See also Precession (astronomy) Hipparchus is known for being almost universally recognized as discoverer of the precession of [30] the equinoxes in 127 BC. His two books on precession, On the Displacement of the Solsticial and Equinoctial Points and On the Length of the Year, are both mentioned in the Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy. According to Ptolemy, Hipparchus measured the longitude of Spica and Regulusand other bright stars. Comparing his measurements with data from his predecessors, Timocharis and Aristillus, he concluded that Spica had moved 2 relative to the autumnal equinox. He also compared the lengths of the tropical year (the time it takes the Sun to return to an equinox) and the sidereal year (the time it takes the Sun to return to a fixed star), and found a slight discrepancy. Hipparchus concluded that the equinoxes were moving ("precessing") through the zodiac, and that the rate of precession was not less than 1 in a century.

Geography[edit]
Hipparchus' treatise "Against the Geography of Eratosthenes" in three books is not [31] preserved. Most of our knowledge of it comes from Strabo. Hipparchus thoroughly and often unfairly criticized Eratosthenes mainly for internal contradictions and inaccuracy in determining positions of geographical localities. Hipparchus insists that a geographic map must be based only on astronomical measurements of latitudes and longitudes and triangulation for finding unknown distances. In geographic theory and methods Hipparchus introduced three main [32] innovations. He was the first to use the grade grid, to determine geographic latitude from star observations, and not only from the suns altitude, a method known long before him, and to suggest that geographic longitude could be determined by means of simultaneous observations of lunar eclipses in distant places. In the practical part of his work, the so-called "table of climata", Hipparchus listed latitudes for several tens of localities. In particular, he improved Eratosthenes'

values for the latitudes of Athens, Sicily, and southern extremity of India. In calculating latitudes of climata(latitudes correlated with the length of the longest solstitial day), Hipparchus used an unexpectedly accurate value for the obliquity of the ecliptic, 2340 (the actual value in the second half of the 2nd century BC was approximately 2343), whereas all other ancient authors knew only a roughly rounded value 24, and even Ptolemy used a less accurate value, [34] 2351. Hipparchus opposed the view generally accepted in the Hellenistic period that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Caspian Sea are parts of a single ocean. At the same time he extends the limits of theoikoumene, i.e. the inhabited part of the land, up to [35] the equator and the Arctic Circle. These Hipparchus ideas found their reflection in the Geography of Ptolemy. In essence, Ptolemys work is an extended attempt to realize Hipparchus vision of what geography ought to be.

[33]

Claudius Ptolemy (/tlmi/; Greek: , Klaudios Ptolemaios, pronounced kl wdios ptol m os ; Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus; c.AD 90 c. AD 168) was a Greco-Roman writer of Alexandria, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in [1][2] the Greek Anthology. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, wrote in Greek, [3] and held Roman citizenship. Beyond that, few reliable details of his life are known. His birthplace has been given as Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid in an uncorroborated statement by the 14th century [4] astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes. This is very late, however, and there is no other reason to suppose [4] [5] that he ever lived anywhere else than Alexandria, where he died around AD 168. Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, at least three of which were of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest (in Greek, , "The Great Treatise", originally , "Mathematical Treatise"). The second is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Romanworld. The third is the astrological treatise known sometimes in Greek as the Apotelesmatika (), more commonly in Greek as theTetrabiblos ( "Four books"), and in Latin as the Quadripartitum (or four books) in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to theAristotelian natural philosophy of his day.
Contents
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1 Background 2 Astronomy 3 Geography 4 Astrology 5 Music 6 Optics 7 Named after Ptolemy 8 See also 9 Footnotes 10 References

10.1 Texts and translations

11 External links

o o

11.1 Primary sources 11.2 Secondary material

11.2.1 Animated illustrations

Background

Engraving of a crowned Ptolemy being guided by the muse Astronomy, from Margarita Philosophica by Gregor Reisch, 1508. Although Abu Ma'sharbelieved Ptolemy to be one of thePtolemies who ruled Egypt after the conquest of Alexander the title King Ptolemy is generally viewed as a mark of respect for Ptolemy's elevated standing in science.

The name Claudius is a Roman nomen; the fact that Ptolemy bore it indicates he lived under the Roman rule of Egypt with the privileges and political rights of Roman citizenship. It would have suited custom if the first of Ptolemy's family to become a citizen (whether he or an ancestor) took the nomen from a Roman called Claudius who was responsible for granting citizenship. If, as was common, this was the

emperor, citizenship would have been granted between AD 41 and 68 (when Claudius, and then Nero, were emperors). The astronomer would also have had a praenomen, which remains unknown. It may have been Tiberius, as that praenomen was very common among those whose families had been granted [citation needed] citizenship by these emperors. Ptolemaeus ( Ptolemaios) is a Greek name. It occurs once in Greek mythology, and is of [6] Homeric form. It was common among the Macedonian upper class at the time of Alexander the Great, and there were several of this name among Alexander's army, one of whom made himself King of Egypt in 323 BC: Ptolemy I Soter. All the kings after him, until Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC, were also Ptolemies. Perhaps for no other reason than the association of name, the 9th century Persian astronomer Abu Ma'shar assumed Ptolemy to be a member of Egypt's royal lineage, stating that the ten kings of Egypt who followed Alexander were wise "and included Ptolemy the Wise, who composed the book of theAlmagest". Abu Ma'shar recorded a belief that a different member of this royal line "composed the book on astrology and attributed it to Ptolemy". We can evidence historical confusion on this point from Abu Ma'shar's subsequent remark It is sometimes said that the very learned man who wrote the [7] book of astrology also wrote the book of the Almagest. The correct answer is not known. There is little evidence on the subject of Ptolemy's ancestry, apart from what can be drawn from the details of his name [8] (see above); however, modern scholars refer to Abu Mashars account as erroneous, and it is no longer doubted that the astronomer who wrote the Almagest also wrote the Tetrabiblos as its astrological [9] counterpart. Beyond his being considered a member of Alexandria's Greek society, few details of Ptolemy's life are known for certain. He wrote in Ancient Greek and is known to have utilized Babylonian astronomical [10][11] data. He was a Roman citizen, but most scholars conclude that Ptolemy was ethnically [12][13][14] [13][15][16] Greek, although some suggest he was a Hellenized Egyptian. He was often known in [17] later Arabic sources as "the Upper Egyptian", suggesting he may have had origins in [18] southern Egypt. Later Arabic astronomers, geographers and physicists referred to him by his name [19] in Arabic: Batlaymus.

Astronomy
Further information: Almagest The Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Babylonian astronomers had developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena; Greek astronomers such as Hipparchus had produced geometric models for calculating celestial motions. Ptolemy, however, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries [20] suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations. Ptolemy presented his astronomical models in convenient tables, which could be used to compute the future or past position [21] of the planets. The Almagest also contains a star catalogue, which is an appropriated version of a catalogue created by Hipparchus. Its list of forty-eight constellations is ancestral to the modern system of constellations, but unlike the modern system they did not cover the whole sky (only the sky Hipparchus could see). Through the Middle Ages, it was spoken of as the authoritative text on astronomy, with its [22] author becoming an almost mythical figure, called Ptolemy, King of Alexandria. The Almagest was preserved, like most of Classical Greek science, in Arabic manuscripts (hence its familiar name). Because

of its reputation, it was widely sought and was translated twice into Latin in the 12th century, once in Sicily [23] and again in Spain. Ptolemy's model, like those of his predecessors, was geocentric and was almost universally accepted until the appearance of simpler heliocentric models during the scientific revolution. His Planetary Hypotheses went beyond the mathematical model of the Almagest to present a physical [24] realization of the universe as a set of nested spheres, in which he used the epicycles of his planetary model to compute the dimensions of the universe. He estimated the Sun was at an average distance of 1,210 Earth radii, while the radius of the sphere of the fixed stars was 20,000 times the radius of the [25] Earth. Ptolemy presented a useful tool for astronomical calculations in his Handy Tables, which tabulated all the data needed to compute the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets, the rising and setting of the stars, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Ptolemy's Handy Tables provided the model for later astronomical tables or zjes. In the Phaseis (Risings of the Fixed Stars), Ptolemy gave a parapegma, a star calendar or almanac, based on the hands and disappearances of stars over the course of the solar year.

Geography
Main article: Geography (Ptolemy)

Geography by Ptolemy, Latin manuscript of the early 15th century

Ptolemy's other main work is his Geographia. This also is a compilation of what was known about the world's geography in the Roman Empire during his time. He relied somewhat on the work of an earlier [citation needed] geographer, Marinos of Tyre, and on gazetteers of the Roman and ancient Persian Empire. The first part of the Geographia is a discussion of the data and of the methods he used. As with the model of the solar system in the Almagest, Ptolemy put all this information into a grand scheme. Following Marinos, he assigned coordinates to all the places and geographic features he knew, in a grid that spanned the globe. Latitude was measured from the equator, as it is today, but Ptolemy

preferred to express it as the length of the longest day rather than degrees of arc (the length of the midsummer day increases from 12h to 24h as one goes from the equator to the polar circle). In books 2 through 7, he used degrees and put the meridian of 0 longitude at the most western land he knew, the "Blessed Islands", probably the Canary Islands, as suggested by the location of the six dots labelled the "FORTUNATA" islands near the left extreme of the blue sea of Ptolemy's map here reproduced.

[26]

A 15th-century manuscript copy of the Ptolemy world map, reconstituted from Ptolemy's Geographia (circa 150), indicating the countries of "Serica" and "Sinae" (China) at the extreme east, beyond the island of "Taprobane" (Sri Lanka, oversized) and the "Aurea Chersonesus" (Malay Peninsula).

Ptolemy also devised and provided instructions on how to create maps both of the whole inhabited world (oikoumen) and of the Roman provinces. In the second part of the Geographia, he provided the necessary topographic lists, and captions for the maps. His oikoumenspanned 180 degrees of longitude from the Blessed Islands in the Atlantic Ocean to the middle of China, and about 80 degrees of latitude from Shetland to anti-Meroe (east coast of Africa); Ptolemy was well aware that he knew about only a quarter of the globe, and an erroneous extension of China southward suggests his sources did not reach all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The maps in surviving manuscripts of Ptolemy's Geographia, however, only date from about 1300, after the text was rediscovered by Maximus Planudes. It seems likely that the topographical tables in books 2 7 are cumulative texts texts which were altered and added to as new knowledge became available in the centuries after Ptolemy (Bagrow 1945). This means that information contained in different parts of the Geography is likely to be of different dates.

A printed map from the 15th century depicting Ptolemy's description of the Ecumene, (1482, Johannes Schnitzer, engraver).

Maps based on scientific principles had been made since the time ofEratosthenes (3rd century BC), but Ptolemy improved projections. It is known that a world map based on the Geographia was on display [citation needed] in Augustodunum,Gaul in late Roman times. In the 15th century, Ptolemy'sGeographia began to be printed with engraved maps; the earliest printed edition with engraved maps was produced in Bologna in 1477, followed quickly by a Roman edition in 1478 (Campbell, 1987). An edition printed atUlm in 1482, including woodcut maps, was the first one printed north of the Alps. The maps look distorted when compared to modern maps, because Ptolemy's data were inaccurate. One reason is that Ptolemy estimated the size of the Earth as too small: whileEratosthenes found 700 stadia for a great circle degree on the globe, Ptolemy uses 500 stadia in the Geographia. It is highly probable that these were the same stadion, since Ptolemy switched from the former scale to the latter between the Syntaxis and the Geographia, and severely readjusted longitude degrees accordingly. If they both used the Attic stadion of about 185 meters, then the older estimate is 1/6 too large, and Ptolemy's value is 1/6 too small, a difference explained due to ancient scientists' use of simple methods for measuring the earth, which were corrupted either high or low by a factor of 5/6, due to the air's bending of horizontal light [citation needed] rays by 1/6 of the Earth's curvature. See also Ancient Greek units of measurement and History of geodesy. Because Ptolemy derived many of his key latitudes from crude longest day values, his latitudes are erroneous on average by roughly a degree (2 degrees for Byzantium, 4 degrees for Carthage), though capable ancient astronomers knew their latitudes to more like a minute. (Ptolemy's own latitude was in error by 14'.) He agreed (Geographia 1.4) that longitude was best determined by simultaneous observation of lunar eclipses, yet he was so out of touch with the scientists of his day that he knew of no such data more recent than 500 years before (Arbela eclipse). When switching from 700 stadia per degree to 500, he (or Marinos) expanded longitude differences between cities accordingly (a point first realized by P.Gosselin in 1790), resulting in serious over-stretching of the Earth's east-west scale in degrees, though not distance. Achieving highly precise longitude remained a problem in geography until the invention of the marine chronometer at the end of the 18th century. It must be added that his original topographic list cannot be reconstructed: the long tables with numbers were transmitted to posterity through copies containing many scribal errors, and people have always been adding or improving the topographic data: this is a testimony to the persistent popularity of this influential work in the history of cartography.

Astrology
Main article: Tetrabiblos

The mathematician Claudius Ptolemy 'the Alexandrian' as imagined by a 16th-century artist

Ptolemy has been referred to as a pro-astrological authority of the highest magnitude. His astrological treatise, a work in four parts, is known by the Greek term Tetrabiblos, or the Latin equivalent Quadripartitum: Four Books. Ptolemy's own title is unknown, but may have been the term found in some Greek manuscripts: Apotelesmatika, roughly meaning 'Astrological Outcomes,' 'Effects' or [28][29] Prognostics. As a source of reference, the Tetrabiblos is said to have "enjoyed almost the authority of a Bible among [30] the astrological writers of a thousand years or more". It was first translated from Arabic into Latin [31] by Plato of Tivoli (Tiburtinus) in 1138, while he was in Spain. The Tetrabiblos is an extensive and continually reprinted treatise on the ancient principles of horoscopic astrology. That it did not quite attain the unrivaled status of the Almagest was, perhaps, because it did not cover some popular areas of the subject, particularly electional astrology (interpreting astrological charts for a particular moment to determine the outcome of a course of action to be initiated at that time), and medical astrology, which were later adoptions. The great popularity that the Tetrabiblos did possess might be attributed to its nature as an exposition of the art of astrology, and as a compendium of astrological lore, rather than as a manual. It speaks in general terms, avoiding illustrations and details of practice. Ptolemy was concerned to defend astrology by defining its limits, compiling astronomical data that he believed was reliable and dismissing practices (such as considering the numerological significance of names) that he believed to be without sound basis. Much of the content of the Tetrabiblos was collected from earlier sources; Ptolemy's achievement was to order his material in a systematic way, showing how the subject could, in his view, be rationalized. It is, indeed, presented as the second part of the study of astronomy of which the Almagest was the first, concerned with the influences of the celestial bodies in the sublunar sphere. Thus explanations of a sort

[27]

are provided for the astrological effects of the planets, based upon their combined effects of heating, cooling, moistening, and drying. Ptolemy's astrological outlook was quite practical: he thought that astrology was like medicine, that is conjectural, because of the many variable factors to be taken into account: the race,country, and upbringing of a person affects an individual's personality as much as, if not more than, the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets at the precise moment of their birth, so Ptolemy saw astrology as something to be used in life but in no way relied on entirely. A collection of one hundred aphorisms about astrology called the Centiloquium, ascribed to Ptolemy, was widely reproduced and commented on by Arabic, Latin and Hebrew scholars, and often bound together in medieval manuscripts after the Tetrabiblos as a kind of summation. It is now believed to be a much later pseudepigraphical composition. The identity and date of the actual author of the work, referred to now as Pseudo-Ptolemy, remains the subject of conjecture.

Music
Ptolemy also wrote an influential work, Harmonics, on music theory and the mathematics of music. After criticizing the approaches of his predecessors, Ptolemy argued for basing musical intervals on mathematical ratios (in contrast to the followers of Aristoxenus and in agreement with the followers of Pythagoras), backed up by empirical observation (in contrast to the overly theoretical approach of the Pythagoreans). Ptolemy wrote about how musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations and vice versa in Harmonics. This is called Pythagorean tuning because it was first discovered by Pythagoras. However, Pythagoras believed that the mathematics of music should be based on the specific ratio of 3:2, whereas Ptolemy merely believed that it should just generally involve tetrachords and octaves. He presented his own divisions of the tetrachord and the octave, which he derived with the help of a monochord. Ptolemy's astronomical interests also appeared in a discussion of the "music of the spheres". See: Ptolemy's intense diatonic scale.

Optics
His Optics is a work that survives only in a poor Arabic translation and in about twenty manuscripts of a Latin version of the Arabic, which was translated by Eugene of Palermo (c. 1154). In it Ptolemy writes about properties of light, including reflection, refraction, and colour. The work is a significant part of the [32] early history of optics and influenced the more famous 11th centuryOptics by Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham). The work is also important for the early history of perception. Ptolemy combined the mathematical, philosophical and physiological traditions. He held an extramission-intromission theory of vision: the rays (or flux) from the eye formed a cone, the vertex being within the eye, and the base defining the visual field. The rays were sensitive, and conveyed information back to the observers intellect about the dist ance and orientation of surfaces. Size and shape were determined by the visual angle subtended at the eye combined with perceived distance and orientation. This was one of the early statements of size-distance [33] invariance as a cause of perceptual size and shape constancy, a view supported by the Stoics. Ptolemy offered explanations for many phenomena concerning illumination and colour, size, shape, movement and binocular vision. He also divided illusions into those caused by physical or optical factors and those caused by judgemental factors. He offered an obscure explanation of the sun or moon illusion (the [34][35] enlarged apparent size on the horizon) based on the difficulty of looking upwards.

Named after Ptolemy

There are several characters or items named after Ptolemy, including: The crater Ptolemaeus on the Moon; The crater Ptolemaeus
[36]

on Mars;

The asteroid 4001 Ptolemaeus; A character in the fantasy series The Bartimaeus Trilogy: this fictional Ptolemy is a young magician (from Alexandria) whom Bartimaeus loved; he made the journey into "the Other Place" to bridge the gap between humans and djinn, being the first magician to do so. He eventually died in an attack ordered by his cousin, the king's son, who feared his power. The name of Celestial Being's carrier ship in the anime Mobile Suit Gundam 00. Track number 10 on Selected Ambient Works 8592 by Aphex Twin. The Ptolemy Stone used in the mathematics courses at both St. John's College campuses. English astronomer and TV presenter Sir Patrick Moore owned a cat named Ptolemy.

See also
Atlas portal

Pei Xiu Ptolemy's Canon a dated list of kings used by ancient astronomers. Ptolemy Cluster star cluster described by Ptolemaeus Ptolemy's theorem mathematical theorem described by Ptolemaeus Ptolemy's table of chords Ptolemy's world map map of the ancient world as described by Ptolemaeus. Zhang Heng

History of trigonometry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Early study of triangles can be traced to the 2nd millennium BC, in Egyptian mathematics (Rhind Mathematical Papyrus) and Babylonian mathematics. Systematic study of trigonometric functions began in Hellenistic mathematics, reaching India as part of Hellenistic astronomy. In Indian astronomy, the study of trigonometric functions flowered in the Gupta period, especially due to Aryabhata (6th century). During the Middle Ages, the study of trigonometry continued in Islamic mathematics, whence it was adopted as a separate subject in the Latin West beginning in theRenaissance with Regiomontanus. The development of modern trigonometry shifted during the western Age of Enlightenment, beginning with 17th-century mathematics (Isaac Newton and James Stirling) and reaching its modern form with Leonhard Euler (1748).
Contents
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1 Etymology 2 Development

o o o o o o

2.1 Early trigonometry 2.2 Greek mathematics 2.3 Indian mathematics 2.4 Islamic mathematics 2.5 Chinese mathematics 2.6 European mathematics

3 See also 4 Citations and footnotes 5 References

Etymology[edit]
The term "trigonometry" derives from the Greek "" ("trigonometria"), meaning "triangle measuring", from "" (triangle) + "" (to measure). Our modern word "sine" is derived from the Latin word sinus, which means "bay", "bosom" or "fold", translating Arabic jayb. The Arabic term is in origin a corruption of Sanskrit jv, or "chord". Sanskrit jv in learned usage was a synonym of jy "chord", originally the term for "bow-string". Sanskrit jv was loaned into Arabic as jiba.[1][2][clarification needed] This term was then transformed[2] into the genuine Arabic word jayb, meaning "bosom, fold, bay", either by the Arabs or by a mistake[1] of the European translators such as Robert of

Chester (perhaps because the words were written without vowels[1]), who translated jayb into Latin as sinus.[3] Particularly Fibonacci's sinus rectus arcus proved influential in establishing the term sinus.[4] .[5] These roughly translate to "first small parts" and "second small parts".

Development[edit]
Early trigonometry[edit]
The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians had known of theorems on the ratios of the sides of similar triangles for many centuries. However, as pre-Hellenic societies lacked the concept of an angle measure, they were limited to studying the sides of triangles instead.[6] The Babylonian astronomers kept detailed records on the rising and setting of stars, the motion of the planets, and the solar and lunar eclipses, all of which required familiarity with angulardistances measured on the celestial sphere.[2] Based on one interpretation of the Plimpton 322 cuneiform tablet (c. 1900 BC), some have even asserted that the ancient Babylonians had a table of secants.[7] There is, however, much debate as to whether it is a table of Pythagorean triples, a solution of quadratic equations, or a trigonometric table. The Egyptians, on the other hand, used a primitive form of trigonometry for building pyramids in the 2nd millennium BC.[2] The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, written by the Egyptian scribe Ahmes(c. 16801620 BC), contains the following problem related to trigonometry:[2] "If a pyramid is 250 cubits high and the side of its base 360 cubits long, what is its seked?" Ahmes' solution to the problem is the ratio of half the side of the base of the pyramid to its height, or the run-torise ratio of its face. In other words, the quantity he found for the seked is the cotangent of the angle to the base of the pyramid and its face.[2]

Greek mathematics[edit]

The chord of an angle subtends the arc of the angle.

Ancient Greek and Hellenistic mathematicians made use of the chord. Given a circle and an arc on the circle, the chord is the line that subtends the arc. A chord's perpendicular bisector passes through the center of the circle and bisects the angle. One half of the bisected chord is the sine of one half the bisected angle, that is,

and consequently the sine function is also known as the "half-chord". Due to this relationship, a number of trigonometric identities and theorems that are known today were also known to Hellenistic mathematicians, but in their equivalent chord form.[8] Although there is no trigonometry in the works of Euclid and Archimedes, in the strict sense of the word, there are theorems presented in a geometric way (rather than a trigonometric way) that are equivalent to specific trigonometric laws or formulas.[6] For instance, propositions twelve and thirteen of book two of the Elements are the laws of cosines for obtuse and acute angles, respectively. Theorems on the lengths of chords are applications of the law of sines. And Archimedes' theorem on broken chords is equivalent to formulas for sines of sums and differences of angles.[6] To compensate for the lack of a table of chords, mathematicians of Aristarchus' time would sometimes use the statement that, in modern notation, sin /sin < / < tan /tan whenever 0 < < < 90, now known as Aristarchus' inequality.[9] The first trigonometric table was apparently compiled by Hipparchus of Nicaea (180 125 BCE), who is now consequently known as "the father of trigonometry."[10] Hipparchus was the first to tabulate the corresponding values of arc and chord for a series of angles.[4][10] Although it is not known when the systematic use of the 360 circle came into mathematics, it is known that the systematic introduction of the 360 circle came a little after Aristarchus of Samoscomposed On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon (ca. 260 BC), since he measured an angle in terms of a fraction of a quadrant.[9] It seems that the systematic use of the 360 circle is largely due to Hipparchus and his table of chords. Hipparchus may have taken the idea of this division from Hypsicles who had earlier divided the day into 360 parts, a division of the day that may have been suggested by Babylonian astronomy.[11] In ancient astronomy, the zodiac had been divided into twelve "signs" or thirty-six "decans". A seasonal cycle of roughly 360 days could have corresponded to the signs and decans of the zodiac by dividing each sign into thirty parts and each decan into ten parts.[5] It is due to the Babylonian sexagesimal numeral system that each degree is divided into sixty minutes and each minute is divided into sixty seconds.[5]

Menelaus' theorem

Menelaus of Alexandria (ca. 100 AD) wrote in three books his Sphaerica. In Book I, he established a basis for spherical triangles analogous to the Euclidean basis for plane triangles.[8] He establishes a theorem that is without Euclidean analogue, that two spherical triangles are congruent if corresponding angles are equal, but he did not distinguish between congruent and symmetric spherical triangles.[8] Another theorem that he establishes is that the sum of the angles of a spherical triangle is greater than 180. [8] Book II of Sphaerica applies spherical geometry to astronomy. And Book III contains the "theorem of Menelaus".[8] He further gave his famous "rule of six quantities".[12] Later, Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 90 ca. 168 AD) expanded upon Hipparchus' Chords in a Circle in his Almagest, or the Mathematical Syntaxis. The Almagest is primarily a work on astronomy, and astronomy relies on trigonometry. Ptolemy's table of chords gives the lengths of chords of a circle of diameter 120 as a function of the number of degrees n in the corresponding arc of the circle, for n ranging from 1/2 to 180 by increments of 1/2.[13] The thirteen books of theAlmagest are the most influential and significant trigonometric work of all antiquity.[14] A theorem that was central to Ptolemy's calculation of chords was what is still known today as Ptolemy's theorem, that the sum of the products of the opposite sides of a cyclic quadrilateral is equal to the product of the diagonals. A special case of Ptolemy's theorem appeared as proposition 93 in Euclid's Data. Ptolemy's theorem leads to the equivalent of the four sumand-difference formulas for sine and cosine that are today known as Ptolemy's formulas, although Ptolemy himself used chords instead of sine and cosine.[14] Ptolemy further derived the equivalent of the half-angle formula

[14]

Ptolemy used these results to create his trigonometric tables, but whether these tables were derived from Hipparchus' work cannot be determined.[14] Neither the tables of Hipparchus nor those of Ptolemy have survived to the present day, although descriptions by other ancient authors leave little doubt that they once existed. [15]

Indian mathematics[edit]
See also: Indian Mathematics and Indian Astronomy The next significant developments of trigonometry were in India. Influential works from the 4th5th century, known as the Siddhantas (of which there were five, the most complete survivor of which is the Surya Siddhanta[16]) first defined the sine as the modern relationship between half an angle and half a chord, while also defining the cosine, versine, and inverse sine.[17] Soon afterwards, another Indian mathematician and astronomer, Aryabhata (476550 AD), collected and expanded upon the developments of the Siddhantas in an important work called the Aryabhatiya.[18] TheSiddhantas and the Aryabhatiya contain the earliest surviving tables of sine values and versine (1 cosine) values, in 3.75 intervals from 0 to 90, to an accuracy of 4 decimal places.[19] They used the words jya for sine, kojya for cosine, utkrama-jya for versine, and otkram jya for inverse sine. The words jya and kojya eventually became sine and cosine respectively after a mistranslation described above. In the 7th century, Bhaskara I produced a formula for calculating the sine of an acute angle without the use of a table. He also gave the following approximation formula for sin(x), which had a relative error of less than 1.9%:

Later in the 7th century, Brahmagupta redeveloped the formula

(also derived earlier, as mentioned above) and the Brahmagupta interpolation formula for computing sine values.[20] Another later Indian author on trigonometry was Bhaskara II in the 12th century. Bhaskara II developed spherical trigonometry, and discovered many trigonometric results. Bhaskara II was the first to discover like: and trigonometric results

Madhava (c. 1400) made early strides in the analysis of trigonometric functions and their infinite series expansions. He developed the concepts of the power series and Taylor

series, and produced the power series expansions of sine, cosine, tangent, and arctangent.[21][22] Using the Taylor series approximations of sine and cosine, he produced a sine table to 12 decimal places of accuracy and a cosine table to 9 decimal places of accuracy. He also gave the power series of and the , radius, diameter, and circumference of a circle in terms of trigonometric functions. His works were expanded by his followers at the Kerala School up to the 16th century.[21][22]

No.

Series

Name

Western discoverers of the series and approximate dates of [23] discovery

sin x = x x / 3! + x / 5! 7 x / 7! + ...

Madhava's sine series

Isaac Newton (1670) and Wilhelm Leibniz (1676)

cos x = 1 x / 2! + x / 4! 6 x / 6! + ...

Madhava's cosine series

Isaac Newton (1670) and Wilhelm Leibniz (1676)

tan x = x x / 3 + x / 5 7 x / 7 + ...

Madhava's arctangent series

James Gregory (1671) and Wilhelm Leibniz (1676)

The Indian text the Yuktibh contains proof for the expansion of the sine and cosine functions and the derivation and proof of the power series for inverse tangent, discovered by Madhava. TheYuktibh also contains rules for finding the sines and the cosines of the sum and difference of two angles.

Islamic mathematics[edit]

Page from The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing by Muhammad ibn Ms al-Khwrizm (c. AD 820)

The Indian works were later translated and expanded in the medieval Islamic world by Muslim mathematicians of mostly Persian and Arab descent, who enunciated a large number of theorems which freed the subject of trigonometry from dependence upon the complete quadrilateral, as was the case in Hellenistic mathematics due to the application of Menelaus' theorem. According to E. S. Kennedy, it was after this development in Islamic

mathematics that "the first real trigonometry emerged, in the sense that only then did the object of study become the spherical or plane triangle, its sides andangles."[24] In addition to Indian works, Hellenistic methods dealing with spherical triangles were also known, particularly the method of Menelaus of Alexandria, who developed "Menelaus' theorem" to deal with spherical problems.[8][25] However, E. S. Kennedy points out that while it was possible in pre-lslamic mathematics to compute the magnitudes of a spherical figure, in principle, by use of the table of chords and Menelaus' theorem, the application of the theorem to spherical problems was very difficult in practice.[26] In order to observe holy days on the Islamic calendar in which timings were determined by phases of the moon, astronomers initially used Menalaus' method to calculate the place of the moon and stars, though this method proved to be clumsy and difficult. It involved setting up two intersecting right triangles; by applying Menelaus' theorem it was possible to solve one of the six sides, but only if the other five sides were known. To tell the time from the sun's altitude, for instance, repeated applications of Menelaus' theorem were required. For medieval Islamic astronomers, there was an obvious challenge to find a simpler trigonometric method.[27] In the early 9th century AD, Muhammad ibn Ms al-Khwrizm produced accurate sine and cosine tables, and the first table of tangents. He was also a pioneer in spherical trigonometry. In 830 AD, Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi produced the first table of cotangents.[28][29] Muhammad ibn Jbir al-Harrn al-Battn (Albatenius) (853-929 AD) discovered the reciprocal functions of secant and cosecant, and produced the first table of cosecants for each degree from 1 to 90.[29] By the 10th century AD, in the work of Ab al-Waf' al-Bzjn, Muslim mathematicians were using all six trigonometric functions.[30] Abu al-Wafa had sine tables in 0.25 increments, to 8 decimal places of accuracy, and accurate tables of tangent values.[30] He also developed the following trigonometric formula:[31] (a special case of Ptolemy's angle-addition formula; see above) In his original text, Ab al-Waf' states: "If we want that, we multiply the given sine by the cosine minutes, and the result is half the sine of the double".[31] Ab al-Waf also established the angle addition and difference identities presented with complete proofs:[31]

For the second one, the text states: "We multiply the sine of each of the two arcs by the cosine of the other minutes. If we want the sine of the sum, we add the products, if we want the sine of the difference, we take their difference".[31] He also discovered the law of sines for spherical trigonometry:[28]

Also in the late 10th and early 11th centuries AD, the Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus performed many careful trigonometric calculations and demonstrated the following trigonometric identity:[32]

Al-Jayyani (9891079) of al-Andalus wrote The book of unknown arcs of a sphere, which is considered "the first treatise on spherical trigonometry" in its modern form.[33] It "contains formulae forrighthanded triangles, the general law of sines, and the solution of a spherical triangle by means of the polar triangle." This treatise later had a "strong influence on European mathematics", and his "definition of ratios as numbers" and "method of solving a spherical triangle when all sides are unknown" are likely to have influenced Regiomontanus.[33] The method of triangulation was first developed by Muslim mathematicians, who applied it to practical uses such as surveying[34] and Islamic geography, as described by Abu Rayhan Biruni in the early 11th century. Biruni himself introduced triangulation techniques to measure the size of the Earth and the distances between various places.[35] In the late 11th century, Omar Khayym(10481131) solved cubic equations using approximate numerical solutions found by interpolation in trigonometric tables. In the 13th century, Nasr al-Dn al-Ts was the first to treat trigonometry as a mathematical discipline independent from astronomy, and he developed spherical trigonometry into its present form.[29] He listed the six distinct cases of a right-angled triangle in spherical trigonometry, and in his On the Sector Figure, he stated the law of sines for plane and spherical triangles, discovered the law of

tangents for spherical triangles, and provided proofs for both these laws.[36] In the 15th century, Jamshd al-Ksh provided the first explicit statement of the law of cosines in a form suitable for triangulation.[citation needed] In France, the law of cosines is still referred to as the theorem of Al-Kashi. He also gave trigonometric tables of values of the sine function to four sexagesimal digits (equivalent to 8 decimal places) for each 1 of argument with differences to be added for each 1/60 of 1.[citation needed] Ulugh Beg also gives accurate tables of sines and tangents correct to 8 decimal places around the same time.[citation needed]

Chinese mathematics[edit]

Guo Shoujing (12311316)

In China, Aryabhata's table of sines were translated into the Chinese mathematical book of the Kaiyuan Zhanjing, compiled in 718 AD during the Tang Dynasty.[37] Although the Chinese excelled in other fields of mathematics such as solid geometry, binomial theorem, and complex algebraic formulas, early forms of trigonometry were not as widely appreciated as in the earlier Greek, Hellenistic, Indian and Islamic worlds.[38] Instead, the early Chinese used an empirical substitute known as chong cha, while practical use of plane trigonometry in using the sine, the tangent, and the secant were

known.[37] However, this embryonic state of trigonometry in China slowly began to change and advance during the Song Dynasty (960 1279), where Chinese mathematicians began to express greater emphasis for the need of spherical trigonometry in calendrical science and astronomical calculations.[37] The polymath Chinese scientist, mathematician and official Shen Kuo (10311095) used trigonometric functions to solve mathematical problems of chords and arcs.[37] Victor J. Katz writes that in Shen's formula "technique of intersecting circles", he created an approximation of the arc s of a circle given the diameter d, sagitta v, and length c of the chord subtending the arc, the length of which he approximated as[39]

Sal Restivo writes that Shen's work in the lengths of arcs of circles provided the basis for spherical trigonometry developed in the 13th century by the mathematician and astronomer Guo Shoujing (12311316).[40] As the historians L. Gauchet and Joseph Needham state, Guo Shoujing used spherical trigonometry in his calculations to improve the calendar system and Chinese astronomy.[37][41] Along with a later 17thcentury Chinese illustration of Guo's mathematical proofs, Needham states that: Guo used a quadrangular spherical pyramid, the basal quadrilateral of which consisted of one equatorial and one ecliptic arc, together with two meridian arcs, one of which passed through the summer solstice point...By such methods he was able to obtain the du l (degrees of equator corresponding to degrees of ecliptic), the ji cha (values of chords for given ecliptic arcs), and the cha l (difference between chords of arcs differing by 1 degree).[42] Despite the achievements of Shen and Guo's work in trigonometry, another substantial work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607, with the dual publication of Euclid's Elements by Chinese official and astronomer Xu

Guangqi (15621633) and the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552 1610).[43]

European mathematics[edit]

Isaac Newton in a 1702 portrait byGodfrey Kneller.

In 1342, Levi ben Gershon, known as Gersonides, wrote On Sines, Chords and Arcs, in particular proving the sine law for plane triangles and giving five-figure sine tables.[44] A simplified trigonometric table, the "toleta de marteloio", was used by sailors in the Mediterranean Sea during the 14th-15th Centuries to calculatenavigation courses. It is described by Ramon Llull of Majorca in 1295, and laid out in the 1436 atlas of Venetian captain Andrea Bianco. Regiomontanus was perhaps the first mathematician in Europe to treat trigonometry as a distinct mathematical discipline,[45] in his De triangulis omnimodus written in 1464, as well as his later Tabulae directionum which included the tangent function, unnamed. The Opus palatinum de triangulis of Georg Joachim Rheticus, a student of Copernicus, was probably the first in Europe to define trigonometric functions directly in terms of right triangles instead

of circles, with tables for all six trigonometric functions; this work was finished by Rheticus' student Valentin Otho in 1596. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton and James Stirling developed the general NewtonStirling interpolation formula for trigonometric functions. In the 18th century, Leonhard Euler's Introductio in analysin infinitorum (1748) was mostly responsible for establishing the analytic treatment of trigonometric functions in Europe, defining them as infinite series and presenting "Euler's formula" eix = cos x + i sin x. Euler used the near-modern abbreviations sin., cos., tang., cot., sec., and cosec. Prior to this, Roger Cotes had computed the derivative of sine in his Harmonia Mensurarum(1722).[46] Also in the 18th century, Brook Taylor defined the general Taylor series and gave the series expansions and approximations for all six trigonometric functions. The works of James Gregory in the 17th century and Colin Maclaurin in the 18th century were also very influential in the development of trigonometric series.