One hundred years ago, J.K. Fotheringham famously derived the “accelerations” of the Sun and Moon from the reports of 11 classical solar eclipses. We review critically the reliability of these eclipse reports and rework his diagrammatic method, treating the deceleration of the Earth’s rotation as an unknown, rather than the “acceleration” of the Sun. There is some serendipity in his choice of the critical eclipses, which opportunely facilitated his derivation of seemingly accurate results for the accelerations.

中文翻译：

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重新审视 Fotheringham 1920 年的太阳和月亮加速度

一百年前，JK Fotheringham 著名地从 11 次经典日食的报告中推导出了太阳和月亮的“加速度”。我们批判性地审查了这些日食报告的可靠性，并重新设计了他的图表方法，将地球自转的减速视为未知，而不是太阳的“加速”。他对临界日食的选择有一些偶然性，这恰好有助于他推导出看似准确的加速度结果。