Ptolemaic Astronomy, Islamic Planetary Theory, and Copernicus's Debt to the Maragha School

Ptolemaic Astronomy, Islamic Planetary Theory, and Copernicus's Debt to the Maragha School

Overview

Ptolemy's (100?-170?) Almagest was first translated into Arabic during the early ninth century. Islamic astronomers initially accepted and worked within the Ptolemaic framework, isolating and correcting erroneous parameters. Objections were later raised concerning Ptolemy's failure to reconcile the mathematical models of the Almagest with the physical spheres they were intended to represent. A group of thirteenth-century Islamic astronomers, known as the Maragha school, revolutionized medieval theoretical astronomy by developing planetary models that resolved the Ptolemaic difficulties. The chief concerns and technical solutions of the Maragha school are evident in the later work of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543).

Background

Plato (428?-347 B.C.) first challenged astronomers to explain the apparently irregular movements of celestial bodies in terms of uniform circular motions. Eudoxus (408?-355? B.C.) accepted this challenge "to save the phenomena" and developed a system of concentric spheres with Earth as their common center. Each planet, as well as the Sun and Moon, was attached to a single sphere. This, in turn, was part of a set of interconnected spheres, each of which rotated about its own axis at a different rate and orientation. The combined motions were then adjusted to approximate the observed movements of the body in question.

Ptolemaic Astronomy, Islamic Planetary Theory, and Copernicus's Debt to the Maragha School article

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