Thales of Miletus, Archimedes and the Solar Eclipses on the Antikythera Mechanism

作     者：G6ran Henriksson 

作者机构：Department of Physics and Astronomy Uppsala University Uppsala SE 751 20 Sweden 

出 版 物：《Journal of Earth Science and Engineering》 (地球科学与工程（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2014年第4卷第12期

页      面：757-769页

学科分类：07[理学] 070402[理学-天体测量与天体力学] 0704[理学-天文学] 0701[理学-数学] 070101[理学-基础数学] 

主　　题：Solar eclipse exeligmos cycle saros cycle seasonal hour equinoctial hour. 

摘      要：Thales of Miletus （640？-546 BC） is famous for his prediction of the total solar eclipse in 585 BC. In this paper, the author demonstrate how Thales may have used the same principle for prediction of solar eclipses as that used on the Antikythera Mechanism. At the SEAC conference in Alexandria in 2009, the author presented the paper ＂Ten solar eclipses show that the Antikythera Mechanism was constructed for use on Sicily.＂ The best defined series of exeligmos cycles started in 243 BC during the lifetime of Archimedes （287-212 BC） from Syracuse. The inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism were made in 100-150 BC and the last useful exeligmos started in 134 BC. The theory for the motion of the moon was from Hipparchus （ca 190-125 BC）. A more complete investigation of the solar eclipses on the Antikythera Mechanism reveals that the first month in the first saros cycle started with the first new moon after the winter solstice in 542 BC. Four solar eclipses 537-528 BC, from the first saros cycle, and three one exeligmos cycle later, 487-478 BC, are preserved and may have been recorded in Croton by Pythagoras （ca 575-495 BC） and his school.