- ...Almagest
- The true title
of this work is Syntaxis Mathematica, which means something
like ``Mathematical Treatise''. The name Almagest is probably an
Arabic corruption of the work's later Greek nickname, H Megiste
(Syntaxis), meaning ``The Greatest (Treatise)''.
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- ... inclinations,
- Actually, Ptolemy erroneously allowed the inclinations of the
deferents and epicycles to vary slightly.
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- ... orbits.
- In fact, the planets revolve on small circular epicycles, whose centers revolve around
the sun on eccentric circular deferents.
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- ... earth.
-
The one exception to this rule is the moon, which is sufficiently close to the earth
that its parallax is significant--see Sect. 6.4.
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- ...
plane.
- In fact, is very slowly decreasing in time. The value of
used in the Almagest is . However, the true value of in Ptolemy's day was .
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