The book is the proof that the intuition of Pythagoras was correct. Mathematics allows the world to be described and the future to be predicted: the apparently wandering and disorderly movements of the planets can be precisely predicted by using mathematical formulae that Ptolemy, summarizing the results of centuries of work by Greek astronomers, presents in a systematic and masterly way. Even today, with a little studying, it is possible to open Ptolemy’s book, learn its techniques and calculate, for example, the position which Mars will have in a future sky. Today: two thousand years, that
...more
