Foretelling a Solar Eclipse 2,600 Years Ago?

Hildon Oliveira Santiago Carade

Opinion Article

Foretelling a Solar Eclipse 2,600 Years Ago?

Leo Dubal*

10 rue des Marchands, 30000 Nîmes, France

Corresponding Author

Received Date: June 13, 2023; Published Date: June 20, 2023

Introduction

Could Thales of Miletus have predicted a Solar eclipse? Over the last century, there has been a controversy over how, 26 centuries ago, Thales could possibly have predicted a solar eclipse over the Lydian-Medes border. O. Neugebauer [1] even denied Thales could have made such a prediction! It is turned out that those researchers (including myself !) implicitly envisioned solar eclipses prediction as a sophisticated astronomical circulation based on the Saros cycle of 223 lunations and on the 54 years Exeligmos cycle. In 1995, at the Congresso Internacional de Estudios Fenicios y Pùnicos in Cadiz, I advocated [2] the hypothesis that, in Miletus, on -602.05.18, Thales would have observed the 50% magnitude morning eclipse, the Saros 57/-05 on the NASA catalogue [3]. Thales would then have predicted the Saros 57/-04 on the NASA catalogue, due to 223 lunaisons later, i.e: the “double sunset” on -584.05.28. Such a long term prediction de facto presupposed, in addition to the understanding of the Saros cycle, to keep a log book, a lunar calendar.

To solve the problem of 1 century up to 2 millennium long term retrodiction of ancient solar eclipses, i.e. to develop a tool for reliable astronomical predictions, an enormous know-how has been necessary. With the release in 2005 by Xavier Jubier of his 5MCSE [4], the 5 Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses, a user-friendly freeware coupled to Google Earth, one can say that finally ancient solar eclipses retrodiction became a scientific discipline. The greatest benefit offered by 5MCSE is to allow to cross-check ancient observations against models for the slowing-down of Earth rotation, such as our Observed Ancient Solar Eclipses Database [5]. Nevertheless for Thales, he was just coping with a short term qualified guess !

For the problem of 1 hour to 18 months short term foretelling of Solar eclipses, the neurosurgeon W.H. Calvin [6] wrotes: It is potentially quite easy, so long as you can be wrong half of the time. The so-called rule #1 is :

A solar eclipse may happened 6, 12 or 18 New Moons after a first solar eclipse.

This empirical rule has no scientific support, though over a given geographical area solar eclipses statistically have a tendency to cluster.

In 2002, at the Colóquio International, Astronomia, Educação e Cultura in Luanda, (the follow-up of the observation mission of the 2001 Solar eclipse), I presented [7] the empirical rule #1 as a table of the dates of 18 New Moons [8] following the 2001 Solar eclipse:

Table 1: Dates of the New Moons [8] following the 2001 Solar eclipse over Angola.

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As expected, the solar eclipse on the 18th New Moon of this table agreed with the prediction of 5MCSE ! Nevertheless I have been mentally unable to draw the same table for the Thales Solar eclipse. Twenty years later, disappointed by the lack of new elements to comfort my 1995 shaky hypothesis of a Thales aware of the SAROS cycle, I filled the New Moons table to apply the rule # 1 to this eclipse.

Table 2: Dates of the 18 New Moons preceding the -584 Solar eclipse over Miletus.

Surprise: on the -586.12.14, thanks to Xavier Jubier “long term retrodiction freeware” one knows that there was a Magnitude 74% Annular Solar Eclipse over Miletus!

Conclusion

In a way, O. Neugebauer was right: the Miletian proto-astronomer Thales never predicted a solar eclipse ! Though, after having observed the partial annular eclipse on -586.12.14, and, as neither on New Moon-585.05.10 nor on New Moon -585.11.03 any Solar eclipse occurred, he made a qualified guess and boldly foretold to the king Alyattes the -584.05.28 Solar eclipse. This statistically possible event allowed the Lydian king to stage triumphally the end of his too long lasting war against the Medes [9].