The ballet of the planets. On the mathematical elegance of planetary motion. (Q2892809)

This book is a very readable popular text about classical (i.e., non-relativistic) planetary motion. Not only the elliptic curves appearing in the new Sun-centered system of reference, but also the epicyclic curves appearing in the old Earth-centered system of reference are explained in much detail including the importance of the Coriolis force. Many diagrams elucidate the calculations, which are all essentially elementary. In a sense, this book can also be read as a textbook on the geometry of the Euclidean plane, because the properties of ellipses, triangles etc. are all formulated as theorems and are accompanied by proofs. Two appendices present the Greek alphabet and the definition of vectors.