Interesting Facts
Many of the students of Plato went on to be great scientists and philosophers that were also celebrated as some of the best minds in history. His student Eudoxus, a major influence on the minds of Ptolemy and Euclid, developed the system of concentric spheres that became the epicycles of the Ptolemaic astronomical system. All this worked out on his own, based off of the idea from Plato that the solar system was geocentric. Heracleides, yet another student of Plato, determined that the Earth cycled on its axis every twenty-four hours. He also suggested that the solar system was heliocentric, however, he was opposed in his argument by theories from both Plato and Aristotle, and their perspective won out in the end.
Eudoxus also determined that a solar year, or a year as we now follow it, is three hundred, sixty-five days and six hours long. Despite the fact that Eudoxus was a brilliant mathematician, he still could not make the breakthrough in his calculations that would determine the solar system to be heliocentric. Instead, the position of the Ptolemaic geocentric theory was passed down through Plato. Menaechmus was a student of Eudoxus, and he made breakthroughs in conic sections. He began the studies of conic sections, basically, the hyperbola, the ellipse, and parabola. Apollonius of Perga was influenced by his teaching, several centuries later, and began expanding on his teachings.
Aristotle, another great student of Plato also had several students working and studying under him at the Academy founded by Plato. Callipus was also a friend of Aristotle’s, who developed the system of concentric spheres, adding an additional seven and eventually built the framework for the system that would be adopted by Ptolemy and Aristotle. Callipus modified and evolved the theories of Eudoxus, and passed them down to Aristotle, who further expanded on the complex system of epicycles and spheres, until they were eventually passed down to Ptolemy.