NATS 1745 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Almagest
7 Jun 2019
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1. Describe how the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks was preserved during the Dark
Ages. Why were Islamic scholars interested in the astronomical knowledge of the
Ancient Greeks?
2. Why is Ptolemy's astronomy textbook known as "The Almagest"?
3. Why are most star names Arabic in origin?
4. Whose cosmology did the medieval Church adopt, and why? Was it geocentric or
heliocentric?
5. How did Buridan's thought experiments about moving objects on Earth pave the way
for heliocentrics like Copernicus?
6. According to Copernicus, what do the planets orbit around, what is the shape of their
orbits, and do they move at constant or non-constant speeds through space?
7. What are the 3 components of Earth's motion?
8. What was Copernicus' correct explanation for retrograde motion?
9. In the Copernican model, when do planets appear to slow down and increase their
brightness, and why? Does this match what we observe in the sky?
10. What was Copernicus' correct order of the planets?
11. In the Copernican model, what is the explanation for the different motion of Mercury
and Venus compared to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn?
12. When Copernicus compared the orbital periods of the planets with their orbital radii in
his heliocentric model, what did he find?
13. What is the (shortened) name of Copernicus' famous book in which he presented his
heliocentric cosmology? What did Copernicus' colleague add to the book in order to
make it appear less controversial?
