Hipparchus

This article is about the Greek astronomer. For other uses, see Hipparchus (disambiguation).

Hipparchus
19th century engraving based on an engraved amethyst from the Poniatowski gem collection[a]
Bornc. 190 BC
Nicaea, Kingdom of Bithynia
(modern-day İznik, Bursa, Turkey)
Diedc. 120 BC (around age 70)
Rhodes, Roman Republic
(modern-day Greece)
Occupations

Hipparchus (/hɪˈpɑːrkəs/; Greek: Ἵππαρχος, Hípparkhos; c. 190 – c. 120 BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry,[1] but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes.[2] Hipparchus was born in Nicaea, Bithynia, and probably died on the island of Rhodes, Greece. He is known to have been a working astronomer between 162 and 127 BC.[3]

Hipparchus is considered the greatest ancient astronomical observer and, by some, the greatest overall astronomer of antiquity.[4][5] He was the first whose quantitative and accurate models for the motion of the Sun and Moon survive. For this he certainly made use of the observations and perhaps the mathematical techniques accumulated over centuries by the Babylonians and by Meton of Athens (fifth century BC), Timocharis, Aristyllus, Aristarchus of Samos, and Eratosthenes, among others.[6]

He developed trigonometry and constructed trigonometric tables, and he solved several problems of spherical trigonometry. With his solar and lunar theories and his trigonometry, he may have been the first to develop a reliable method to predict solar eclipses.[citation needed][dubious – discuss]

His other reputed achievements include the discovery and measurement of Earth's precession, the compilation of the first known comprehensive star catalog from the western world, and possibly the invention of the astrolabe, as well as of the armillary sphere that he may have used in creating the star catalogue. Hipparchus is sometimes called the "father of astronomy",[7][8] a title conferred on him by Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre in 1817.[9]


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  5. ^ Denison Olmsted, Outlines of a Course of Lectures on Meteorology and Astronomy, pp 22
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference jones2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference glashan1895 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference delambre1817 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).