Evening all just putting along

..The realization that the ancients somehow knew about the infinitely small, appears to be impossible to us. There is also evidence which points to their knowledge of the infinitely great. No one can tell how the people of antiquity were-able to obtain this information without advanced precision instruments which they apparently did not have.

This contradiction between poor instruments and rich knowledge has puzzled many a scientist and thinker. There are references to the solar parallax in classical sources. In modern times the first observation of the parallax of the sun was made by William Gascoigne in 1670 by means of a wire-netting placed in front of the telescopic lens. But the sages of antiquity were not known, to have had telescopes. How did they discover the solar parallax? To observe the apparent displacement of the sun amidst the stars because of the movement of the earth on its orbit, requires advanced instrumentation.

How did the ancients know that the orbit of the earth was not round but elliptical? How did they arrive at the conclusion that the plane of the terrestrial orbit did not coincide with the plane of the earth's equator? Plutarch cites Aristarchus (3rd century B.C.E.) in introducing this subject: "The earth revolves in an oblique circle while it rotates at the same time about its own axis." This mystery of the history of astronomy was noted by the celebrated astronomers J. S. Bailly in 1781 and K. Gauss in 1819, and was mentioned in their monumental works.
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2023/06/part-3-we-are-not-first-sages-under.html