The History of Greek Astronomy

This paper explores four of the greatest minds of classic astronomy Apollinarius, Aristarchus of Samos, Ptolemy, and Hipparchus of Nicea. The outmoded Grecians are often referred to as the fathers of ancient astronomy. They developed theories and numeral formulae to describe the wonders of the cosmos, even the word cosmos came from the Greeks. The ancient Greek philosophers refined astronomy from being an observational science into a full-blown theoretical science. This paper will attempt to attend out who actually was more important to the history of astronomy of these four astronomers. Apollinarius was among the most prominent Greek astronomers of the condemnation this egregious preceding Ptolemy and his chief contributions were in lunar theory. Not much(prenominal) of his act upon or writings survived or is even know by title although one specimen of Apollinariuss survived. This was a acquittance of roughly 500 words quoted in a share of an anonymous commentar y on Ptolemys expert Tables, self-possessed in the early third century CE and was uphold in a medieval astrological manuscript. This passage explains about the de point outicities with the Moon, and explains how the moons motion in latitude, reckoned as its progress in the plane of its orbit relative to the nodal line.

Astrologers of this time period used Apollinariuss tables for computing positions of the Sun and Moon, and that these tables busy the Babylonian convention according to which the vernal equinoctial acid is at the eighth degree in Aries, not the ancestry of the sign as Hipparchus and Ptolemy assum ed. Apollinarius and Ptolemy were both group! ed as astronomers who computed ascensional arcs by means of spherical trigonometry rather than the Babylonian arithmetic methods in common use. The second Greek astronomer in this paper is on Aristarchus of Samos who was the first to formulate plain the heliocentric theory by placing the Sun not the undercoat at the center of the known universe (Heath 1913 ). This theory would...If you motive to piss a full essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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