On Sun, 9 Aug 2015 14:57:55 -0700 (PDT), Brian Denzer
wrote this crap:

In the posthumously-published 18th century manuscript,
Descriptio Automati Planetarii, Christian Huygens described
the motions of the planets in degrees traveled in one Earth year.

It depends on your definition of a year.

So, for example, he said that Earth travels
359° 45' 40" 31''' in one year,

That seems reasonable.

but Saturn travels
just 12° 13' 34" 18''' in one year.

That seems reasonable.

What is he talking about, how did he arrive at those
numbers, and what is the unit used in the last term (thirds?)?

That's degrees, minutes, and seconds. That's a standard format.

The degrees traveled by other planets are also listed,
but the document is in Latin, so it's very difficult to
extract those ratios.

Not a problem. I speak fluent Latin, as do a lot of the scientific
community.

I rather like his approach as an exercise in the
math of astronomy. I'd like to understand it better.

Just go outside and enjoy the starlight. You'll feel better.

Thanks for any assistance that might be offered.

You're welcome. Thanks for the kind words.


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