User:Medicusfuturi/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Equant

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This article is related to our History of Science course, and I find it to be an interesting cosmological explanation of planetary motion.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of this article is concise and a good summary. However, it does not mention any criticism of the equant, which makes up a large section of the article. The content succeeding the lead section goes into great detail, especially when discussing the equant's discovery and use by Ptolemy. The article does not seem to discuss any equity gaps. Further, I think it could include a sentence or two about about Copernicus' ideas of the cosmos being similar to those of al-Tusi and al-Shatir; the current phrasing makes it seem that Copernicus had completely new and independent thoughts about Ptolemy's use of the equant. The overall tone of the article is neutral, and the content is balanced. It demonstrates both the rationale and criticisms of the equant well. Most of the references used in crafting the article are reliable secondary sources with functioning links. Furthermore, they are up-to-date and published recently enough for the information in the article to be trustworthy. The grammatical quality and organization of the article is exceptional. There is one image included that accurately depicts how Ptolemy envisioned the equant. It has a descriptive caption and does not violate copyright regulations. The most recent discussion in the Talk page talked about a change being needed in the image caption so that readers will be able to distinguish which point on the image is the equant; this change was made as the caption now describes the image fully. My overall impression of this article is that it is organized well and accurately represents the equant as well as its criticisms surrounding it not being true uniform circular motion. I think a more in-depth and descriptive approach to the mathematics (possibly an image with drawn out angles) could enhance the article along with a note that Copernicus' criticisms were most likely not independent of those shared by some Islamic astronomers. Otherwise, this is an informative, descriptive and well-organized article.