TY - JOUR
T1 - Britton’s theory of the creation of Column Φ in Babylonian System A lunar theory
AU - Shnider, Steven
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
PY - 2017/5/1
Y1 - 2017/5/1
N2 - The following article has two parts. The first part recounts the history of a series of discoveries by Otto Neugebauer, Bartel van der Waerden, and Asger Aaboe which step by step uncovered the meaning of Column Φ, the mysterious leading column in Babylonian System A lunar tables. Their research revealed that Column Φ gives the length in days of the 223-month Saros eclipse cycle and explained the remarkable algebraic relations connecting Column Φ to other columns of the lunar tables describing the duration of 1, 6, or 12 synodic months. Part two presents John Britton’s theory of the genesis of Column Φ and the System A lunar theory starting from a fundamental equation relating the columns discovered by Asger Aaboe. This article is intended to explain and, hopefully, to clarify Britton’s original articles which many readers found difficult to follow.
AB - The following article has two parts. The first part recounts the history of a series of discoveries by Otto Neugebauer, Bartel van der Waerden, and Asger Aaboe which step by step uncovered the meaning of Column Φ, the mysterious leading column in Babylonian System A lunar tables. Their research revealed that Column Φ gives the length in days of the 223-month Saros eclipse cycle and explained the remarkable algebraic relations connecting Column Φ to other columns of the lunar tables describing the duration of 1, 6, or 12 synodic months. Part two presents John Britton’s theory of the genesis of Column Φ and the System A lunar theory starting from a fundamental equation relating the columns discovered by Asger Aaboe. This article is intended to explain and, hopefully, to clarify Britton’s original articles which many readers found difficult to follow.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85014265526&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00407-017-0189-4
DO - 10.1007/s00407-017-0189-4
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SN - 0003-9519
VL - 71
SP - 279
EP - 318
JO - Archive for History of Exact Sciences
JF - Archive for History of Exact Sciences
IS - 3
ER -