Fundamental roles that astronomy played in the development of mathematics

Question

I'm currently a third year undergrad maths student, and am particularly interested in how astronomy changed maths as we know it today?

Are there any particular sources that could be recommended? Or even if someone could explain to me the fundamentals of maths that astronomy brought about. I know that it dates back as far as the Babylonians, but are there any significant periods of time that made a great difference?

Thanks

Answer 1

Astronomy has always been a powerful stimulus for the development of mathematical tools to solve problems arising from the natural sciences. The Kerala school, motivated by problems in astronomy, already developed power series for a number of trigonometric functions centuries before the development of the calculus in the 17th century. In the early 17th century, Kepler used infinitesimals to derive the area law of planetary motion. Most famously, of course, Newton used infinitesimal calculus to derive his laws.

Answer 2

Trigonometry was originally developed for solving problems in astronomy, and it took a long time before it was used for other purposes. Ptolemy's version of trigonometry was chord tables, later Indian astronomers or mathematicians found that the sine function was more convenient to use.

Gauss developed the method of least squares to solve the problem of computing the orbit of a planet from only a few observations.