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Flourished  possibly Syracuse, (Sicily, Italy), circa 400 BCE

Almost nothing is known of Hicetus (or Nicetus) other than the fact that he was probably a Pythagorean. He is also thought to have lived in Syracuse. This knowledge comes to us from Plutarch, who calls him the ruler of the Leontines.

The Pythagorean school is known to have argued that the Earth rotates eastward on its axis. The interesting point about Hicetus is that he is sometimes credited with removing the Earth from the center of the Universe. Nicolaus Copernicus referenced Hicetus in his De Revolutionibus to show that even the ancient Greeks had considered this option.

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Selected References

  • Copernicus, Nicholas (1978). On the Revolutions, edited by Jerzy Dobrzycki with translation and commentary by Edward Rosen. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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  •  Heath, Sir Thomas L. (1931). A Manual of Greek Mathematics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Reprint, New York: Dover, 1963.)

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© 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

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Durham, I.T. (2007). Hicetus. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_621

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