43 undulations

[-JKP-]

... or the two are unrelated but both chose to represent a prime number.

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Or, there's a further possibility...

Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344),  (his Greek/Provençal names were Gersonides and  Leo de Balneolis), wrote mostly about philosophical subjects, but he also wrote about judicial astrology (which was popular in the late Middle Ages), planetary movements, and eclipses, and he produced astrology/astronomy tables that apparently diverged from Ptolemaic tradition (based on his own empirical studies).

He wrote in Hebrew, but his astronomical tables were translated into Latin and at least one copy exists in Provençal.


This is the part that intrigues me... in the section on eclipses, Levi details a 43-day period of transition:

Item dies prime tabule et quarte transeunt per unam diem in 43 annis. Et ideo transactis 43 annis reduces equationem secunde diei ad primam et sic de singulis, et eodem modo erit in quibuslibet 43 annis fiendum.




See Bodley Sefer Milhamot Ha-Shem You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. MS. Pococke 376 (written in 1391) for a scan of a page of the manuscript.


Unfortunately, it's not one of the ones the Polonsky Foundation has had digitized. The most relevant section is Book 5, part 1. There is, however, a 1397 Hebrew copy on BNF Gallica:

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