Early AstronomySpringer Science & Business Media, 06/12/2012 - 268 من الصفحات People must have watched the skies from time immemorial. Human beings have always shown intellectual curiosity in abundance, and before the invention of modern distractions people had more time-and more mental energy-to devote to stargazing than we have. Megaliths, Chinese oracle bones, Babylonian clay tablets, and Mayan glyphs all yield evi dence of early peoples' interest in the skies. To understand early astronomy we need to be familiar with various phenomena that could-and still can-be seen in the sky. For instance, it seems that some early people were interested in the points on the horizon where the moon rises or sets and marked the directions of these points with megaliths. These directions go through a complicated cycle-much more complicated than the cycle of the phases of the moon from new to full and back to new, and more complicated than the cycle of the rising and setting directions of the sun. Other peoples were interested in the irregular motions of the planets and in the way in which the times of rising of the various stars varied through the year, so we need to know about these phenomena, i. e. , about retrogression and about heliacal rising, to usc the technical terms. The book opens with an explanation of these matters. Early astronomers did more than just gaze in awe at the heavenly bodies; they tried to understand the complex details of their movements. By 300 H. C. |
المحتوى
The Moon | 12 |
Megalithic Astronomy | 45 |
The Babylonians | 73 |
The Egyptians | 82 |
4455 | 92 |
The Greeks | 110 |
The Astronomy of Aryabhața | 178 |
Arabic Astronomy | 190 |
Hipparchuss Table of Chords | 235 |
Calculation of the EccentricQuotient for the Sun and the Longitude of its Apogee | 237 |
Ptolemys Table of Chords | 239 |
Calculating the Radius of the Moons Epicycle | 240 |
The EccentricQuotient and Apogee of Mars | 244 |
Reversed Epicycles | 246 |
Further Reading | 249 |
Sources of Information | 252 |
طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات
عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة
accurate alignments Almagest almanac angle anomalistic period apogee astronomy axis azimuth Babylonian Brahe calculate calendar called celestial equator celestial pole celestial sphere Chinese chords circle constellations Copernicus cycle decan declination direction distance earth eccentric-quotient ecliptic Egyptian epicycle equal equant equator equinox Euctemon Eudoxus fact Figure full moon give Greek Griffith Observatory Guo Shoujing heavens heliacal rising Hipparchus Hipparchus's horizon interval Jupiter Kepler later latitude longitude manda Mars mathematical Maya mean sun measured Megalithic Mercury midsummer midwinter modern months moon moonrise motion moves round nodes observations opposite Otto Neugebauer parallax planet position precession Ptolemy Ptolemy's radius reign-period result retrogression revolution rotation round the ecliptic saros Saturn shadow length sidereal period southernmost stades stars started stone Stonehenge summer solstice sunrise sunset synodic period tablets theory velocity Venus vertical visible volume whole number winter solstice Yuan shi zodiac