A Short History of Astronomy, Arthur Berry [large screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗
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49. The fifth book of the Almagest contains an account of the construction and use of Ptolemy’s chief astronomical instrument, a combination of graduated circles known as the astrolabe.33
Then follows a detailed discussion of the moon’s parallax (§ 43), and of the distances of the sun and moon. Ptolemy obtains the distance of the moon by a parallax method which is substantially identical with that still in use. If we know the direction of the line C M (fig. 33) joining the centres of the earth and moon, or the direction of the moon as seen by an observer at A; and also the direction of the line B M, that is the direction of the moon as seen by an observer at B, then the angles of the triangle C B M are known, and the ratio of the sides C B, C M is known. Ptolemy obtained the two directions required by means of observations of the moon, and hence found that C M was 59 times C B, or that the distance of the moon was equal to 59 times the radius of the earth. He then uses Hipparchus’s eclipse method to deduce the distance of the sun from that of the moon thus ascertained, and finds the distance of the sun to be 1,210 times the radius of the earth. This number, which is substantially the same as that obtained by Hipparchus (§ 41), is, however, only about 1∕20 of the true number, as indicated by modern work (chapter XIII., § 284).
The sixth book is devoted to eclipses, and contains no substantial additions to the work of Hipparchus.
50. The seventh and eighth books contain a catalogue of stars, and a discussion of precession (§ 42). The catalogue, which contains 1,028 stars (three of which are duplicates), appears to be nearly identical with that of Hipparchus, It contains none of the stars which were visible to Ptolemy at Alexandria, but not to Hipparchus at Rhodes. Moreover, Ptolemy professes to deduce from a comparison of his observations with those of Hipparchus and others the (erroneous) value 36″ for the precession, which Hipparchus had given as the least possible value, and which Ptolemy regards as his final estimate. But an examination of the positions assigned to the stars in Ptolemy’s catalogue agrees better with their actual positions in the time of Hipparchus, corrected for precession at the supposed rate of 36″ annually, than with their actual positions in Ptolemy’s time. It is therefore probable that the catalogue as a whole does not represent genuine observations made by Ptolemy, but is substantially the catalogue of Hipparchus corrected for precession and only occasionally modified by new observations by Ptolemy or others.
51. The last five books deal with the theory of the planets, the most important of Ptolemy’s original contributions to astronomy. The problem of giving a satisfactory explanation of the motions of the planets was, on account of their far greater irregularity, a much more difficult one than the corresponding problem for the sun or moon. The motions of the latter are so nearly uniform that their irregularities may usually be regarded as of the nature of small corrections, and for many purposes may be ignored. The planets, however, as we have seen (chapter I., § 14), do not even always move from west to east, but stop at intervals, move in the reverse direction for a time, stop again, and then move again in the original direction. It was probably recognised in early times, at latest by Eudoxus (§ 26), that in the case of three of the planets, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, these motions could be represented roughly by supposing each planet to oscillate to and fro on each side of a fictitious planet, moving uniformly round the celestial sphere in or near the ecliptic, and that Venus and Mercury could similarly be regarded as oscillating to and fro on each side of the sun. These rough motions could easily be interpreted by means of revolving spheres or of epicycles, as was done by Eudoxus and probably again with more precision by Apollonius. In the case of Jupiter, for example, we may regard the planet as moving on an epicycle, the centre of which, j, describes uniformly a deferent, the centre of which is the earth. The planet will then as seen from the earth appear alternately to the east (as at J1) and to the west (as at J2) of the fictitious planet j; and the extent of the oscillation on each side, and the interval between successive appearances in the extreme positions (J1, J2) on either side, can be made right by choosing appropriately the size and rapidity of motion of the epicycle. It is moreover evident that with this arrangement the apparent motion of Jupiter will vary considerably, as the two motions—that on the epicycle and that of the centre of the epicycle on the deferent—are sometimes in the same direction, so as to increase one another’s effect, and at other times in opposite directions. Thus, when Jupiter is most distant from the earth, that is at J3, the motion is most rapid, at J1 and J2 the motion as seen from the earth is nearly the same as that of j; while at J4 the two motions are in opposite directions, and the size and motion of the epicycle having been chosen in the way indicated above, it is found in fact that the motion of the planet in the epicycle is the greater of the two motions, and that therefore the planet when in this position appears to be moving from east to west (from left to right in the figure), as is actually the case. As then at J1 and J2 the planet appears to be moving from west to east, and at J4 in the opposite direction, and sudden changes of motion do not occur in astronomy, there must be a position between J1 and J4, and another between J4 and J2, at which the planet is just reversing its direction of motion, and therefore appears for the instant at rest. We thus arrive at an explanation of the stationary points (chapter I., § 14). An exactly similar scheme explains roughly the motion of Mercury and Venus, except that the centre of the epicycle must always be in the direction of the sun.
Hipparchus, as we have seen (§ 41), found the current representations of the planetary motions inaccurate, and collected a number of fresh observations. These, with fresh observations of his own, Ptolemy now employed in order to construct an improved planetary system.
As in the case of the moon, he used as deferent an eccentric circle (centre C), but instead of making the centre j of the epicycle move uniformly in the deferent, he introduced a new point called an equant (E′), situated at the same distance from the centre of the deferent as the earth but on the opposite side, and regulated the motion of j by the condition that the apparent motion as seen from the equant should be uniform; in other words, the angle A E′ j was made to increase uniformly. In the case of Mercury (the motions of which have been found troublesome by astronomers of all periods), the relation of the equant to the centre of the epicycle was different, and the latter was made to move in a small circle. The deviations of the planets from the ecliptic (chapter I., §§ 13, 14) were accounted for by tilting up the planes of the several deferents and epicycles so that they were inclined to the ecliptic at various small angles.
By means of a system of this kind, worked out with great care, and evidently at the cost of enormous labour, Ptolemy was able to represent with very fair exactitude the motions of the planets, as given by the observations in his possession.
It has been pointed out by modern critics, as well as by some mediaeval writers, that the use of the equant (which played also a small part in Ptolemy’s lunar theory) was a violation of the principle of employing only uniform circular motions, on which the systems of Hipparchus and Ptolemy were supposed to be based, and that Ptolemy himself appeared unconscious of his inconsistency. It may, however, fairly be doubted whether Hipparchus or Ptolemy ever had an abstract belief in the exclusive virtue of such motions, except as a convenient and easily intelligible way of representing certain more complicated motions, and it is difficult to conceive that Hipparchus would have scrupled any more than his great follower, in using an equant to represent an irregular motion, if he had found that the motion was thereby represented with accuracy. The criticism appears to me in fact to be an anachronism. The earlier Greeks, whose astronomy was speculative rather than scientific, and again many astronomers of the Middle Ages, felt that it was on a priori grounds necessary to represent the “perfection” of the heavenly motions by the most “perfect” or regular of geometrical schemes; so that it is highly probable that Pythagoras or Plato, or even Aristotle, would have objected, and certain that the astronomers of the 14th and 15th centuries ought to have objected (as some of them actually did), to this innovation of Ptolemy’s. But there seems no good reason for attributing this a priori attitude to the later scientific Greek astronomers (cf. also §§ 38, 47).34
It will be noticed that nothing has been said as to the actual distances of the planets, and in fact the apparent motions are unaffected by any alteration in the scale on which deferent and epicycle are constructed, provided that both are altered proportionally. Ptolemy expressly states that he had no means of estimating numerically the distances of the planets, or even of knowing the order of the distance of the several planets. He followed tradition in accepting conjecturally rapidity of motion as a test of nearness, and placed Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (which perform the circuit of the celestial sphere in about 2, 12, and 29 years respectively) beyond the sun in that order. As Venus and Mercury accompany the sun, and may therefore be regarded as on the average performing their revolutions in a year, the test to some extent failed in their case, but Ptolemy again accepted the opinion of the “ancient mathematicians” (i.e. probably the Chaldaeans) that Mercury and Venus lie between the sun and moon, Mercury being the nearer to us. (Cf. chapter I., § 15.)
52. There has been much difference of opinion among astronomers as to the
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