ASTR-1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Celestial Navigation, Minute And Second Of Arc, Scientific Method
20 Sep 2016
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Scientific thinking making sense of everything in our world, trial and error experiments. Science requires: attention to detail, testing/retesting of idea to ensure reliability, a willingness to give up old beliefs if they are not consistent with the observable world. Ancient africans could predict rainy/dry season based on the crescent moon. Days of the week were named after the sun, moon, and easily visible planets (mars, Egyptians divided daytime and nighttime into 12 equal parts. England stonehenge told location of sun. Mexican model of the templo mayor told location of sun. New mexico anasazi kiva aligned with the north and the south. New mexican chaco canyon marked the seasons based on the solstices. Scotland can predict the 18. 6-year lunar cycle. Peru lines and patterns in the ground, some aligned with stars. Archeoastronomy mix of archeology and astronomy. Macchu pichu aligned with the solstices. South pacific polynesians were skilled in celestial navigation, good at using stars/sun to navigate the sea.
