NATS 1745 Lecture Notes - Ancient Greek Astronomy, Edwin Hubble, Archaeoastronomy
11 Apr 2014
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Document Summary
Lecture 1 course introduction, archaeoastronomy and the sun. Provides a general overview of the course: archaeoastronomy. Ancient ruins have revealed to us that prehistoric societies understood the cycles of the sky well enough to predict the positions of the sun, moon, planets and stars: astronomy of ancient civilizations. Chinese, mayans, egyptians and babylonians kept detailed records of celestial events for practicing astronomy. From their records we have made discourses about celestial phenomenon like comets and supernovae: ancient greek astronomy. Began tradition of finding scientific explanations for nature; also first known cosmologists: copernican revolution. In the 15th century, copernicus would rise to challenge geocentric cosmology of aristotle that dominated up until that point: first modern astronomers. (3) galileo galilei (1564-1642: isaac newton. Isaac newton (1643-1727: unveiling the solar system. Between late 1700s and early 1900s, our full solar system was revealed: birth of stellar astrophysics.
