I guess cyra not know forgot about the 2,000-year-old Antikythera device... with its 37 gears that calculated the elliptical paths of the sun and the moon... featuring eclipse-predictor arms with balls on them, that go around like backwards clock-arms till they line-up with Earth at the center.
That info's been around for 10,000 years or more I bet, in case he widens his definition of who 'the ancients' are.
But you know us deplorables... we don't know anything about science.