Cancer Posted August 31, 2013 Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 Yeah, way back. Further than that, probably, given Stonehenge and all that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted August 31, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 Acknowledge both of you. However I think the author of the book is intending is that there is a link in the chain that has been overlooked, and about having it credited in the history books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 31, 2013 Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 Have you read the book or just the byline? No astronomer would for a minute believe that " ...first book to claim ..." in the ad blurb. Everyone knows that astronomy and reasonably successful predictive astronomy antedates the Greeks by millenia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted August 31, 2013 Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 And the pre-Columbian Mesoamericans were certainly skilled astronomers, without any contact with Greece whatsoever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 31, 2013 Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 Though they were about 600 later, iirc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 31, 2013 Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 Though they were about 600 later, iirc.Years later. Edit still no workee with iPad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted August 31, 2013 Report Share Posted August 31, 2013 Should've been left alone for another millennium -- then we would've seen sparks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 Have you read the book or just the byline? No astronomer would for a minute believe that " ...first book to claim ..." in the ad blurb. Everyone knows that astronomy and reasonably successful predictive astronomy antedates the Greeks by millenia. Yes just read the blurb. And did you read my post? I said "link in the chain" implying that yes astronomy predates the Greeks. IIRC Thales learnt astronomy from the Egyptians and also correctly predicted an eclipse with mathematics (also learnt from the Egyptians). As history tells us' date=' Thales marked a sea-change in society whose effects continue today. [/font'] The book above I reckon is an attempt to fill in some of the detail in the presocratic tradition concerning astronomy that may have been overlooked by historians. THus you being an astronomer, i thought such a book, you know, may naturally be of interest. I guess i was wrong... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted September 1, 2013 Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 Hey Bazz, what did you do to the other thread? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 1, 2013 Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 Well, people who come into astronomy from the astronomy side rather than the physics side know some of the history. The constellations we have from the Greeks, they got from the Mesopotamians, literally millenia earlier. (There is a convincing argument that the classical constellations the West uses were framed from there, IIRC 5000 tears ago.). The Babylonian number system, based on 60 and 360, certainly stems from the approximation of 360 as the. lebgth of the year in days. They deduced the saros, and frankly I have forgotten who first made note of the Metonic cycle. So the blurb was rather off-putting to me, claiming "first" for something that's been known and acknowledged by the scientific community for a long time. The Greeks did solid observational and deductive work, and no one ought say otherwise. They rejected the heliocentric model of the Solar System on perfectly valid logical grounds; they did not take seriously the possibility that the distances were so great that the unaided eye could not perceive the parallax that had to be there in such a model.And their mathematics is brilliant. But their rich civilization lost its inquiring edge, due to both internal and external reasons. More great progress had to wait for the arabs, and after that, Renaissance Europe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 1, 2013 Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 Yeah, if you yngvied up Super Squirrel's thread, he'll be annoyed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted September 1, 2013 Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 Maybe it was Melvin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 Hey Bazz' date=' what did you do to the other thread?[/quote'] Wish i knew. tried to post with an embedded video. Looks like I got "the last word" in the wrong thread... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 The Greeks did solid observational and deductive work' date=' and no one ought say otherwise. They rejected the heliocentric model of the Solar System on perfectly valid logical grounds; they did not take seriously the possibility that the distances were so great that the unaided eye could not perceive the parallax that had to be there in such a model.And their mathematics is brilliant. But their rich civilization lost its inquiring edge, due to both internal and external reasons. More great progress had to wait for the arabs, and after that, Renaissance Europe.[/quote'] this part, is what I figure the book is intending to contribute to. The blurb did say "contribute to" rather than "invented Astronomy period". The "first" probably could be rephrased to "new theory" as the main crux of the book is regarding Anaxagoras* who from what I've found out, observed the motion of the moon on the tides -- so he was already a bit of an astronomer. The book also makes the claim that Anaxagoras got some of this from Parmenides, which hitherto may not be widely known (hence the publication of the book). *Spelt it correctly without having to look it up. Well had to ad the "a" between the "x" and the "g" but apart from that, I spelt his name correctly, which surprises me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 Yeah' date=' if you yngvied up Super Squirrel's thread, he'll be annoyed. [/quote'] I could tweet him, but since he hasn't been seen (that i know of) I doubt he would really care anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 But on the bright side, we now have a target to catch up with! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted September 1, 2013 Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 I could tweet him, but since he hasn't been seen (that i know of) I doubt he would really care anymore. He's active on FB -- dealing with some heavy RL stuff, like the divorce from Alice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2013 He's active on FB -- dealing with some heavy RL stuff, like the divorce from Alice. I knew they divorced, as I follow both on Twitter, so got both sides of it. Didn't know he was active on FB, as not so active on Twitter nowadays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 2, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2013 I can successfully post to LRTE, just not get to that page Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted September 2, 2013 Report Share Posted September 2, 2013 ... Huh. Weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 2, 2013 Report Share Posted September 2, 2013 I didn't know SS and AtO had split. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted September 2, 2013 Report Share Posted September 2, 2013 ... Think we can bump it out of the Dead Zone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 2, 2013 Report Share Posted September 2, 2013 I doubt it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted September 2, 2013 Report Share Posted September 2, 2013 Ah, no harm in trying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted September 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2013 my thoughts as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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