Reflections on Eudoxus, Callippus and their Curves: Hippopedes and Callippopedes (Q4780756)

This long and technical article makes a thoroughgoing mathematical examination of the theories of homocentric spheres for the sun, the moon and the planets, invented by Eudoxus and developed by his successor Callippus. A detailed exposition of mathematical properties of the hippopede is given (Sections 1, 3, 4). This is the figure eight curve generated by composition of rotations of two spheres having equal speed and different poles. The author describes a useful and intuitively easy decomposition of any rotation of two spheres into a simple rotation of the first sphere and a motion on hippopede (Section 1). The curves generated by adding one more sphere (used by Callippus), called callippopede by the author, can similarly be decomposed into hippopede on another hippopeder (Sections 7, 8). The author also points out that the widely accepted assumption that the point (planet) on hippopede has the fastest longitudinal speed at its center is false, so that the conditions for realizing the retrograde motion of the planets have to be reexamined (Section 5). With these mathematical tools enhanced by the use of computer, the author proposes possible models for the theory of Eudoxus and Callippus reported mainly by Simplicius. The model for moon seems so plausible that one may wonder why this model has been hitherto overlooked (Section 2). For other planets, the author limits himself to proposing possible models, since neither the observational data available to Eudoxus nor the phenomenon (e.g., retrograde motion or lengthh of invisible period) Eudoxus intended to explain by his model, is known to us (Section 6). The author defines the results in this article as ``the outer boundary of an acceptable interpretation and no more'' (Section 9), and it is indeed difficult to assume that all the mathematical results in this article obtained by the aid of modern mathematics and computer were available to Eudoxus and Callippus, Anyway, this article is obligatory for those attempting the examination of Eudoxus' planetary theory from mathematical point of view. More texual examination of the ancient sources undelying the mathematics of this areticle is given by the same author in ``The trouble with Eudoxus'' (2000; Zbl 0997.01001).