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Ars Astronomica – English translations of rare Hebrew and Latin astronomy texts
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Overview
Ars Astronomica produces the first English translations of historical Hebrew and Latin works in astronomy, cosmology, and natural philosophy. These texts, which include Gersonides’ 136-chapter mathematical astronomy, have never appeared in English and allow for comparative study of cosmological questions across different authors.
Summary from arsastronomica.com.
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Hacker News · arsastronomica.com
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Based on 5 sampled comments from this thread. Analyzed 2026-07-28.
- Praise: AI-assisted translations can achieve a reasonable level of quality, making pivotal works accessible that otherwise might remain untranslated.
- Praise: A professional book editor found the AI-assisted translation impressive, highlighting the potential for quality in such projects.
- Praise: The project combines OCR, AI-assisted translation, and editorial review, creating a workflow that preserves complex elements like diagrams and mathematical notation.
- Praise: This initiative opens up historically significant texts to a broader audience, democratizing access to knowledge that was previously locked away.
- Concern: Some see the project as merely a thin wrapper around running Claude, questioning its originality and added value.
- Concern: Critics argue that users could achieve similar results by running the texts through Claude themselves, implying a lack of innovation in the project.
- Concern: There are concerns about the PDF format's usability; suggestions for improvements indicate that the current layout might hinder effective review of translations.