Equatorium
Ecuatorio
- Date
- c. 1015 · confidence medium
- Place
- Córdoba / Toledo, al-Andalus
- Credited to
- Ibn al-Samh, Ibn al-Zarqali
- People
- 👤 Ibn al-Samh979–1035
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
An instrument with brass discs and epicycles that mechanically reproduces the Ptolemaic model and gives the position of the planets without calculation. The first medieval analogue planetary computer.
What it led to
- Chaucer's treatise and European equatoria (Campanus of Novara, Richard of Wallingford)
- astronomical clocks with planetary indicators
- a culture of instrumental calculation that paved the way for Kepler
Built on
- Almagest and Ptolemy theoremc. 150 CE
- Islamic planispheric astrolabec. 900
- Islamic planispheric astrolabe
- Ptolemy's Almagest
Made possible
- Astronomical clock (Astrarium)1364
- Astronomical clock (Astrarium)
- Dondi's Astrarium