In class, we’ve been discussing Ptolemy’s use of epicycles to explain the motion of the planets from a geocentric perspective.
An interesting bit of knowledge about epicycles is that, if nested enough times, they can approximate a very diverse range of complex shapes.
This site will generate a series of Fourier epicycles based on the image you submit. https://www.myfourierepicycles.com/
This shows that epicycles can be fitted to almost any pattern you see, including planet orbits. The tricky part is justifying why those epicycles would exist in reality.
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