NATS 1745 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Babylonian Astronomy, Babylonian Numerals, Minute And Second Of Arc
11 Apr 2014
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1. the babylonian traveled the celestial cycles because they believed that the sky foretold the future. 2. each night, a record of the sky was entered on a tablet. 3. babylonians numbers: a base-60system (i. e consisting of numbers for 1-60 multiplied by the power of. 60), because 60 has many factors (a convenient base for division: they therefore used numbers that are multiples of 60, eg. 60 min=1 hr, 60 sec= 1 min, 360 degrees = 1 circle, 60 arc minutes. =1 degrees, 60 arc seconds = 1 arc minute: they borrowed the 24 hour day from the egyptians. Due to the procession f the equinoxes the suns constellations have changed, since te zodiac signs were assigned 2000 years ago. 5. the babylonian named the 5 visible planets after the gods they best describe. Chinese records which have been kept in great detail for thousands of years. Chine falls under the same latitude: a planetary conjunction seen above and in the animation : http://www. yorku. ca/ns1745b/anim-conjunction. gif.
