On the Sizes and Distances (Aristarchus)

For the work by Hipparchus, see On Sizes and Distances (Hipparchus).

Aristarchus's 3rd century BCE calculations on the relative sizes of, from left, the Sun, Earth and Moon, from a 10th-century CE Greek copy

On the Sizes and Distances (of the Sun and Moon) (Ancient Greek: Περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων [ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης], romanized: Perì megethôn kaì apostēmátōn [hēlíou kaì selḗnēs]) is widely accepted as the only extant work written by Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who lived circa 310–230 BCE. This work calculates the sizes of the Sun and Moon, as well as their distances from the Earth in terms of Earth's radius.

The book was presumably preserved by students of Pappus of Alexandria's course in mathematics, although there is no evidence of this. The editio princeps was published by John Wallis in 1688, using several medieval manuscripts compiled by Sir Henry Savile.[1] The earliest Latin translation was made by Giorgio Valla in 1488. There is also a 1572 Latin translation and commentary by Frederico Commandino.[2][3]

  1. ^ Heath, Thomas (1913). Aristarchus of Samos, the Ancient Copernicus. Oxford: Clarendon. p. 323.
  2. ^ Berggren and Sidoli. 2007. 'Aristarchus's On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon: Greek and Arabic Texts'. Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 61(3), pp. 213–54. doi:10.1007/s00407-006-0118-4
  3. ^ Noack B. (1992) Aristarch von Samos: Untersuchungen zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der Schrif Περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης, Wiesbaden.