Rounding numbers: Ptolemy's calculation of the Earth-Sun distance (Q1018495)

Two predictions obtained by heavily theory-laden calculations, involving several lunar eclipses, in the \textit{Almagest} and the \textit{Planetary Hypotheses}, for the Earth-Sun distance are so close that the charge of data selection, alteration, and/or other forms of data manipulation has been leveled at Ptolemy ever since Kepler. In this paper, the author provides a sophisticated reconstruction of the way in which Ptolemy could have altered the data, and argues for the historical plausibility of the proposed reconstruction, which incidentally also provides answers to ten hitherto unanswered questions related to rounding, errors, choices of maximum and not mean distance, and other inconsistencies that show up in the \textit{Almagest} and the \textit{Planetary Hypotheses}.