François Viète's method for calculating the eccentricity in a bisected model and its possible application to Kepler's vicarious hypothesis (Q2118259)

In this paper, the author analyzes Viète's so-called method for bisected models which he investigated in his unpublished work \textit{Ad harmonicon coeleste}, and he shows how this method extends to non-bisected models, giving a solution to a problem that Kepler investigated, related to the computation of the eccentricities of his vacarious hypothesis (a planetary hypothesis that he developed mainly for the description of the motion of the planet Mars). At the same time, the author presents a solution that Viète gave in his \textit{Apollonius Gallus seu exsuscitata Apollonii Pergaei} to a problem that Ptolemy had solved in the \textit{Almagest}, namely, given the arcs between three points on a circle and the angles between them seen from a point different from the center, to find the ratio between the radius of the circle and the distance between the center of the circle and the given point. The author explains the relations between these two mathematical problems and between these problems and questions on astronomy such as a model for the outer planets that Viète also presented in his \textit{Ad harmonicon} and Copernicus' two-epicycle model for the superior planets. From the purely historical point of view, a missing opportunity for a collaboration between Kepler and Viète is conjectured. The paper is interesting, well written and very informative.