Researchers have found traces of the lost text of Hipparchus, the “father” of ancient astronomy.
He is considered the precursor of ancient astronomy. The Greek mathematician Hipparchus, who is said to have lived in the IIe century BC, would be the author of a catalog listing the coordinates of hundreds of stars. A scientific document of great value… but lost for centuries. At least until the discovery in a manuscript of the Middle Ages, by French, British and American researchers, of a text extract comprising fragments of this catalog of Hipparque. Works published in the journal Journal for the History of Astronomy, which, beyond the scientific value of the document, could well close centuries-old debates.
As is often the case in scientific advances, chance is not entirely unrelated to the discovery of this much sought-after text. Peter Williams, a researcher at Tyndale House, a center for biblical studies at Cambridge University (UK), was carrying out a research project with his students on certain pages of a…
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