The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy

James Evans

Oxford University Press | 1998 | 495 páginas | rar - pdf | 14,92 Mb

link (password: matav)

The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy combines new scholarship with hands-on science to bring readers into direct contact with the work of ancient astronomers. While tracing ideas from ancient Babylon to sixteenth-century Europe, the book places its greatest emphasis on the Greek period, when astronomers developed the geometric and philosophical ideas that have determined the subsequent character of Western astronomy. The author approaches this history through the concrete details of ancient astronomical practice. Carefully organized and generously illustrated, the book can teach readers how to do real astronomy using the methods of ancient astronomers. For example, readers will learn to predict the next retrograde motion of Jupiter using either the arithmetical methods of the Babylonians or the geometric methods of Ptolemy. They will learn how to use an astrolabe and how to design sundials using Greek and Roman techniques. The book also contains supplementary exercises and patterns for making some working astronomical instruments, including an astrolabe and an equatorium. More than a presentation of astronomical methods, the book provides a critical look at the evidence used to reconstruct ancient astronomy. It includes extensive excerpts from ancient texts, meticulous documentation, and lively discussions of the role of astronomy in the various cultures. Accessible to a wide audience, this book will appeal to anyone interested in how our understanding of our place in the universe has changed and developed, from ancient times through the Renaissance.

Contents
ONE - The Birth of Astronomy
1.1 Astronomy around 700 B.C.: Texts from Two Cultures 3
1.2 Outline of the Western Astronomical Tradition n
1.3 Observation: The Use of the Gnomon 27
1.4 On the Daily Motion of the Sun 27
1.5 Exercise: Interpreting a Shadow Plot 31
1.6 The Diurnal Rotation 31
1.7 Observation: The Diurnal Motion of the Stars 39
1.8 Stars and Constellations 39
1.9 Earth, Sun, and Moon 44
1.10 The Annual Motion TT the Sun 53
1.11 Observation: The Motion of the Moon 58
1.12 The Uses of Shadows 59
1.13 Exercise: Using Shadow Plots 63
1.14 The Size of the Earth 63
1.15 Exercise: The Size of the Earth 66
1.16 Observation: The Angular Size of the Moon 67
1.17 Aristarchus on the Sizes and Distances 67
1.18 Exercise: The Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon 73
TWO - The Celestial Sphere
2.1 The Sphere in Greek Astronomy 75
2.2 Sphairopoii'a: A History of Sphere Making 78
2.3 Exercise: Using a Celestial Globe 85
2.4 Early Writers on the Sphere 87
2.5 Geminus: Introduction to the Phenomena 91
2.6 Risings of the Zodiac Constellations: Telling Time at Night 95
2.7 Exercise: Telling Time at Night 99
2.8 Observation: Telling Time at Night 99
2.9 Celestial Coordinates 99
2.10 Exercise: Using Celestial Coordinates 105
2.11A Table of Obliquity 105
2.12 Exercise: Using the Table of Obliquity 109
2.13 The Risings of the Signs: A Table of Ascensions 109
2.14 Exercise: On Tables of Ascensions 120
2.15 Babylonian Arithmetical Methods in Greek Astronomy: Hypsicles on the Risings of the Signs 121
2.16 Exercise: Arithmetic Progressions and the Risings of the Signs 125
2.17 Observation: The Armillary Sphere as an Instrument of Observation 125
THREE - Some Applications of Spherics
3.1 Greek and Roman Sundials 129
3.2 Vitruvius on Sundials 132
3.3 Exercise: Making a Sundial 135
3.4 Exercise: Some Sleuthing with Sundials 140
3.5 The Astrolabe 141
3.6 Exercise: Using the Astrolabe 152
3.7 The Astrolabe in History 153
3.8 Exercise: Making a Latitude Plate for the Astrolabe 158
FOUR - Calendars and Time Reckoning
4.1 The Julian and Gregorian Calendars 163
4.2 Exercise: Using the Julian and Gregorian Calendars 170
4.3 Julian Day Number 171
4.4 Exercise: Using Julian Day Numbers 174
4.5 The Egyptian Calendar 175
4.6 Exercise: Using the Egyptian Calendar 181
4.7 Luni-Solar Calendars and Cycles 182
4.8 Exercise: Using the Nineteen-Year Cycle 188
4.9 The Theory of Star Phases 190
4.10 Exercise: On Star Phases 198
4.11 Some Greek Parapegmata 199
4.12 Exercise: On Parapegmata 204
FIVE - Solar Theory
5.1 Observations of the Sun 205
5.2 The Solar Theory of Hipparchus and Ptolemy 210
5.3 Realism and Instrumentalism in Greek Astronomy 216
5.4 Exercise: Finding the Solar Eccentricity 220
5.5 Rigorous Derivation of the Solar Eccentricity 221
5.6 Exercise: On the Solar Theory 223
5.7 Tables of the Sun 226
5.8 Exercise: On the Tables of the Sun 235
5.9 Corrections to Local Apparent Time 235
5.10 Exercise: Apparent, Mean, and Zone Time 243
SIX- The Fixed Stars
6.1 Precession 245
6.2 Aristotle, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy on the Fixedness of the Stars 247
6.3 Observation: Star Alignments 250
6.4 Ancient Methods for Measuring the Longitudes of Stars 250
6.5 Exercise: The Longitude of Spica 257
6.6 Hipparchus and Ptolemy on Precession 259
6.7 Exercise: The Precession Rate from Star Declinations 262
6.8 The Catalog of Stars 264
6.9 Trepidation: A Medieval Theory 274
6.10 Tycho Brahe and the Demise of Trepidation 281
SEVEN - Planetary Theory
7.1 The Planets 289
7.2 The Lower Planets: The Case of Mercury 299
7.3 Observation: Observing the Planets 301
7.4 The Upper Planets: The Case of Mars 302
7.5 Exercise: On the Oppositions of Jupiter 305
7.6 The Spheres of Eudoxus 305
7.7. The Birth of Prediction: Babylonian Goal-Year Texts 312
7.8 Exercise: On Goal-Year Texts 316
7.9 Babylonian Planetary Theory 317
7.10 Babylonian Theories of Jupiter 321
7.11 Exercise: Using the Babylonian Planetary Theory 334
7.12 Deferent-and-Epicycle Theory, I 337
7.13 Greek Planetary Theory between Apollonius and Ptolemy 342
7.14 Exercise: The Epicycle of Venus 347
7.15 A Cosmological Divertissement: The Order of the Planets 347
7.16 Exercise: Testing Apollonius's Theory of Longitudes 351
7.17 Deferent-and-Epicycle Theory, II: Ptolemy's Theory of Longitudes 355
7.18 Exercise: Testing Ptolemy's Theory of Longitudes 359
7.19 Determination of the Parameters of Mars 362
7.20 Exercise: Parameters of Jupiter 369
7.21 General Method for Planet Longitudes 369
7.22 Exercise: Calculating the Planets 372
7.23 Tables of Mars 372
7.24 Exercise: Using the Tables of Mars 384
7.25 Ptolemy's Cosmology 384
7.26 Astronomy and Cosmology in the Middle Ages 392
7.27 Planetary Equatoria 403
7.28 Exercise: Assembly and Use of Schöner's Aequatorium Martis 406
7.29 Geocentric and Heliocentric Planetary Theories 410
7.30 Nicholas Copernicus: The Earth a Planet 414
7.31 Kepler and the New Astronomy 427