Analemma, the Ancient Sketch of Fictitious Sunpath Geometry—Sun, Time and History of Mathematics

Abstract

In the era of computers and sophisticated technology many basic principles and concepts inherited from antiquity are sometimes forgotten. In this paper the history of a stick vertically placed in the ground, a gnomon, a shade tool for predicting time, as well as an instrument for measuring solar coordinates on a fictitious sky dome is examined. The practical needs of determining sunpaths stimulated the orthographic projections and descriptive geometry principles in traditional analemma rules, later interpreted in mathematical formulae.