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Inner circle, in astronomy
Answer for the clue "Inner circle, in astronomy ", 8 letters:
epicycle
Word definitions for epicycle in dictionaries
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. a circle that rolls around (inside or outside) another circle; generates an epicycloid or hypocycloid
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Epicycle \Ep"i*cy`cle\, n. [L. epicyclus, Gr. ?; 'epi` upon + ? circle. See Cycle .] (Ptolemaic Astron.) A circle, whose center moves round in the circumference of a greater circle; or a small circle, whose center, being fixed in the deferent of a ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. 1 (context astronomy English) A small circle whose centre is on the circumference of a larger circle; in Ptolemaic astronomy it was seen as the basis of revolution of the "seven planets", given a fixed central Earth. 2 (context mathematics English) Any ...
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"small circle moving on or around another circle," late 14c., from Late Latin epicyclus , from Greek epikyklos , from epi (see epi- ) + kyklos (see cycle (n.)). Related: Epicyclic .
Usage examples of epicycle.
If you go once around the epicycle while the deferent rotates once, you trace out the ellipse.
He wears the Aristotelian cosmology like a shackle, clings to it like a wet-nurse, feeds upon its milk of false assumptions, and postulates the most unlikely machinery of epicycle, deferent, and equant.
But if I am no moth-eaten alchemist, neither am I some newfangled astronomer who feigns eccentrics and epicycles and suchlike in order to save the phenomena, when he knows full well that there are no such engines within the orbs.
For one thing, their astronomers have created an elaborate system of epicycles to account for the movements of the planets.
She faltered, remembering how quickly others got bored when she got caught up in cycles and epicycles, conjunctions and precession, the endlessly intriguing wonder of the universe.
The virus was endemic during two periods of the Helliconian year, in the Spring and in the late Autumn of the Great Year, with minor epicycles between these cycles.
But when it came to almagest and astrolabe, the counting of figures and reckoning of epicycles, away would go her thoughts to horse and hound, and a vacant eye and listless face would warn the teacher that he had lost his hold upon his scholar.
But I have heard it said that if the earth turns and all the planets, and the sun stands still, many phenomena are explained, whereas Ptolemy had to invent epicycles and deferents and all sorts of other stupidities that do not exist on earth or in heaven.
He tried to imagine fixed stars and wandering stars, spheres and epicycles, all these words that Liath used so easily—.
He tried to imagine fixed stars and wandering stars, spheres and epicycles, all these words that Liath used so easilybut it only made him impatient.
He tried to imagine fixed stars and wandering stars, spheres and epicycles, all these words that Liath used so easily-but it only made him impatient.
Ptolemy showed that if the epicycle turned roughly once a year, and were the appropriate size, the resulting apparent motion would show the correct retrograde motion.