On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:29:54 GMT, Sam Wormley
wrote:

Androcles wrote:

Ptolemy's epicycles have impeccable observational credentials, so much
so that anyone who questions the theory must have mischievous intent.


Actually Ptolemy's epicycles have considerable predictive error--maybe
"impeccable" before Brahe's time in the 1500s... but unacceptably wrong
even for todays amateur astronomers.

Ptolemy was "predictive" only for an orbit for which epicycles
had already been calculated.

Any error could be resolved by the addition of new epicycles, the
whole thing being not unlike a fourier analysis.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
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