The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy
The ancient astronomical tradition is one of impressive duration and richness–from planet observations by the Babylonians in the second millennium BC to the astronomical revolution of the sixteenth century. Richly illustrated, this book brings the reader into direct contact with ancient astronomy. Throughout the book two questions constantly recur: what evidence permits us to reconstruct the astronomy of the ancient past? How was astronomy actually practiced?Ama… More >>
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They are necessary for proper presentation of the history of science on the starry sky. Usually, highlights the contribution of the thinker or the scientist in a new picture of the world, but it is not stated its commitment to certain aspects of the old pictures, and meanwhile the old and usually go hand in hand and very well co-exist in the worldview of the same researcher.
Let’s start with Aristarchus of Samos (320 … 250 BC), try without trigonometric functions to determine the distance from Earth to the Sun and the Moon and the diameter of the Sun. However, the greatest merit of Aristarchus is hypothesizing the heliocentric system of the world, part of the sharp contradiction with the ancient natural philosophy. Indeed, he argued that the Earth rotates on its axis and at the same time a circle around the sun, inclined to the equator, but as a tribute to the old, considered at the same time that the sun and the stars are fixed. But even before he Eudoxus (408 … 355 BC) tried to represent the motion of celestial bodies in the form of a system of rotating spheres. Undoubtedly, the pinnacle of astronomical ideas of antiquity was Ptolemy (83 … 162 years.) From Alexandria. He united to achieve the ancient Greek astronomers and mathematicians who created the immortal work of the “Great construction of mathematical astronomy in thirteen books, which the Arab mathematicians gave the name” Almagest “. From the standpoint of our days seem to be his painting is a step back from Aristarchus of Samos, as the center of the world in Ptolemy – Earth and planets and the sun revolves around it.
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