Visualization of Ancient Cosmological Models

a presentation of completed work and some difficulties

Two non-discursive modes of presenting ancient astronomy

• Physical models

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Eudoxus Diagrams

From Neugebauer:History of AncientMathematical Astronomy

Project (paedagogy and research)

• 1995: my interest in Eudoxus and computer visualizations

MY WEB SITEA Slight Digression

Tables

Project

• 1995: my interest in Eudoxus and computer visualizations

• 1996-8: works by Hegelmeier, Mendell, Yavetz on Eudoxus

• 2008-2012: Virtual Cosmology (Gabor Betegh, Istvan Bodnár, Tim Wagner, Henry Mendell, Sebastian Szczepanski)

Eudoxus and Ptolemy

Let’s turn to the visualizations

What’s lacking in the Visualizations

• Exportation to a spread sheet (table).

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SPREAD SHEETSA BIG Mess (thank you, Microsoft)

Future?

• Alan Bowen, Francesca Rochberg (EKOH—Early Knowledge of the Heavens: A Digital Library for Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and South Asian Contexts in Pre-Modern Times)

• Solving the spread sheet problem.• Genuine 3 dimensional projections, the

modern version of a physical representation.