[AST 102] - Final Exam Guide - Everything you need to know! (72 pages long)
Document Summary
One of the greek scholars that you are likely to have heard of ad read about in other contexts is plato. Plato"s work continues to influence western aesthetics to this day, but his scientific work laid the foundations for about 2000 years of errors and blind alleys. Plato asserted that observations were inherently fraught with error (he was correct about this), and that therefore pure intellect (thought without observation) would give a truer picture of the universe than observation (he was very wrong about this! Plato is also the first to assert that heavenly bodies must move in perfect circular paths at a constant speed. This reflects the greek notion that the heavens were the realm of perfection, while the earth was the realm of imperfection. This notion of the perfection of the heavens was given its fullest expression in the works of aristotle around 350 bc.
