A mechanical concentric solar model in Khāzinī's \textit{Mu`tabar zīj} (Q2162114)

Abū al-Fatḥ 'Abd al-Raḥmān Manṣūr al-Khāzinī (known as al-Khāzinī or just Khāzinī) was an Iranian mathematician and astronomer from the 11th century. The author of the paper under review discusses a concentric solar model described by Khāzinī in his treatise \textit{On experimental astronomy} in the introduction of his \textit{Mu'tabar zīj}. The author's abstract is a good description of this article: ``The paper brings into light and discusses a concentric solar model briefly described in Chapter 5 of Section III of 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Khāzinī's \textit{On experimental astronomy}, a treatise embedded in the prolegomenon of his comprehensive \textit{Mu'tabar zīj}, completed about 1121 C.E. In it, the Sun is assumed to rotate on the circumference of a circle concentric with the Earth and coplanar with the ecliptic, but the motion of the vector joining the Earth and Sun is monitored by a small eccentric hypocycle. The ratio between the distance of the hypocycle's center from the Earth and the hypocycle's radius is equal to the solar eccentricity in the eccentric model. The model is to account for the constancy of the apparent diameter of the solar disk as held by Ptolemy. The source of the model is unknown. Since the mechanism employed in it clearly resembles the pin-and-slot device, whose use in mechanical astronomical instruments has a long history from the Antikythera Mechanism to the medieval solar, lunar, and planetary equatoria and dials, we argue that the solar model can be positioned within this long-standing tradition and considered the result of the correct understanding of some Byzantine prototype and thus a typical example of the transmission of astronomical ideas via media of the material culture.''