Astronomy 2021A/B Lecture 2: Astro 2021 week 2

• School: Western University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: Astronomy 2021A/B
• Professor: Alyssa Gilbert

Document Summary

Always knew there are many stars, no know there are many planets, can analyze them in new ways, and explore them with new technology. Key principles of modern science: science vs. pseudoscience, scientific theory. Greek civilization, 2300 years ago, produced the first efforts at trying to rationally explain the universe set us on the road to modern science. These are basically the basis of modern science. Conceptual representations ( mental pictures ) of certain aspects of nature (cid:2) or physical, or mathematical. Purpose is to explain and predict some observed phenomena. Thales: earth was flat and floated on an infinite sea along with all other things in space. Anaximander: earth a cylinder suspended in a celestial sphere. Pythagoras: his life revolved around spheres thought earth was a sphere and all other celestial bodies were also spheres. Plato: liked circles, earth at centre, planet, stars and moons had different circles around earth.