Information about the author of the book "The Copernicus of Antiquity (Aristarchus of Samos)", available below, is provided here. This may help readers to better evaluate the contents of the book.
"Sir Thomas Little Heath KCB KCVO FRS FBA (/hiːθ/; 5 October 1861 – 16 March 1940) was a British civil servant, mathematician, classical scholar, historian of ancient Greek mathematics, translator, and mountaineer. He was educated at Clifton College. Heath translated works of Euclid of Alexandria, Apollonius of Perga, Aristarchus of Samos, and Archimedes of Syracuse into English.
Heath was born in Barnetby-le-Wold, Lincolnshire, England, the son of a farmer, Samuel Heath. He was educated at Caistor Grammar School and Clifton College before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded an ScD in 1896 and became an Honorary Fellow in 1920. In 1884 he took the Civil Service examination and became an Assistant Secretary to the Treasury, becoming Permanent Secretary in 1913. He left the Treasury in 1919 for the National Debt Office, holding a post there until he retired in 1926. He was honoured for his work in the Civil Service by being appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1903, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1909, and Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1916.[6] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 1912.
He died in Ashtead, Surrey. He had married professional musician Ada Mary Thomas in 1914; they had a son, Geoffrey Thomas Heath, and a daughter, Veronica Mary Heath. Heath's son Geoffrey went to Trinity College, Cambridge, before becoming a teacher at Ampleforth College, and had 6 children.
Heath was distinguished for his work in Greek mathematics and was author of several books on Greek mathematicians. It is primarily through Heath's translations that modern English-speaking readers are aware of what Archimedes did. His translation of the celebrated Archimedes Palimpsest, however, was based on a transcription that had lacunae, which scholars such as Reviel Netz have been able to fill in to a certain extent, by exploiting scientific methods of imagery not available in Heath's time.
When Heath's Works of Archimedes was published in 1897, the Archimedes Palimpsest had not been extensively explored. Its significance was not recognised until 1906, when it was examined by Danish professor Johan Ludvig Heiberg. The palimpsest contained an extended version of Stomachion, and a treatise entitled The Method of Mechanical Theorems that had previously been thought lost. These works have been a focus of research by later scholars."
(from Wikipedia)
The Copernicus of Antiquity (Aristarchus of Samos)
Interesting notes from the book:
(1) On page 54: Eratosthenes had estimated the diameter of the earth to be about 7,850 miles, which is very close to the current estimate of about 7,917.5 miles.
(2) On page 55: Hipparchus had estimated the distance of the moon from the earth to be about 67 times the radius of the earth. The current estimate is about 60. However, his estimate of the distance of earth to the sun was 2,490 times the radius of the earth, which is about 10 times off.
(3) On page 56: Posidonius had estimated the distance of earth to the sun as 13,090 times the radius of the earth, which is about half as the current estimate of 23,250 times the radius of the earth.
(4) Also on page 56: Copernicus, born about 1,500 years after the Greeks, had estimated the distance of earth to the sun as 1,500 times the radius of the earth, which was less accurate than the Greeks.