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Question |
Answer |
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1.
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What did Columbus really have to convince people of
in order to set out on his voyage? |
that the earth’s circumference was small enough to
allow him to reach China before his ships ran out of food and drinking
water; educated men and women already knew that the earth was round
because Greek astronomers had determined that thousands of years before
and that info had been incorporated into the book that served as the
standard astronomy text in medieval universities |
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2.
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About when did Claudius Ptolemy die and at what
age? |
in 141 or 151 AD at the age of 78 |
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3.
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What is The Mathematical Composition? |
a book by Claudius Ptolemy in which he complied the
work of astronomers from over 400 years; it is essentially an
encyclopedia of astronomy |
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4.
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What else is The Mathematical Composition
known as? Where did this name come from? |
later generations called it the Almagest
from the Arab article Al and the Greek megiste (meaning “great”) |
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5.
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How long was The Mathematical Composition
used? |
the information in this encyclopedia basically
served as a resource for students from the 2nd century AD
until the Renaissance |
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6.
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What book did Columbus use to conclude it must be
possible to reach India by sailing west? Who wrote it and what was it? |
Geography, by Ptolemy; it was a collection
of maps that Ptolemy produced |
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7.
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Describe two or more of the arguments Ptolemy used
to defend the proposition that the earth is round. |
1.
the sun, moon, and stars do not rise at the same time everywhere
on earth
2.
lunar eclipses also do not occur at the same time from one place
to another distant place; instead lunar eclipses occur at an earlier
local time in the west than they do in the east
3.
the difference in time between when one place views a lunar
eclipse and when another distant place does is proportional to the
distance between them, just as you would expect for points located on
the surface of a sphere
4.
as an observer travels north, southern constellations disappear
from view and northern constellations move higher in the sky
5.
when a ship sails toward shore, a mountain on the land appears to
rise from the sea, as would be expected if its lower parts were hidden
by earth’s curved surface |
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8.
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On whose theory did Ptolemy base his arguments
about the earth being the center of the universe? Describe Ptolemy’s
argument. |
Aristotle’s theory that heavy objects fall toward
the center of the universe faster than light ones;
Ptolemy argued that the earth must be the center of
the universe or else it would be falling toward the center, and since
the planet’s mass is greater than that of the people and such upon it,
humans would be falling at a slower pace and be left floating in space |
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9.
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Who were the first to argue that the earth was
round? What else did they propose? |
followers of the mathematician Pythagoras around
500 BC; they proposed that not only was the earth spherical, but it
also rotated on its axis |
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10.
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Who, about 350 years before Ptolemy, also accepted
the idea that the earth was round and what else did this scientist do
important to this idea? |
Eratosthenes (a fellow Alexandrian scientist); he
figured out a way to measure the earth’s circumference |
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11.
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Where was Eratosthenes born and what did he do with
a well? Describe. |
he was born in the town of Syene (now Aswan,
Egypt);
he used a well to get the earth’s radius;
at noon on a summer solstice the sun shone directly
above Syene and illuminate the bottom of the well Eratosthenes had dug;
at the same time in Alexandria, he measured the length of a shadow cast
by a pointer fixed in a hemispherical bowl; Eratosthenes knew that the
direction of the sun’s rays were the same at both Syene and Alexandria;
the length of the shadow in the hemispherical bowl stretched over 1/25
of it (meaning that if it had been a whole sphere, the length would have
been 1/50); Eratosthenes then concluded that the distance between the
two towns had to be 1/50 of the circumference of the earth |
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12.
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Once Eratosthenes had a measurement from his “well”
experiment, what did he do then? |
in order to actually figure out the total
circumference of the earth, Eratosthenes had to know the distance
between Syene and Alexandria; using “pacers,” Eratosthenes concluded
that the towns were 5,000 stades (or 30,000 feet) apart; he then used
that figure and his 1/50 figure to estimate that the earth has a
circumference of 29,000 miles (not bad: modern calculations using
trigonometry and other fancy things put the earth’s circumference at
25,000 miles) |
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13.
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What problems are there with Eratosthene’s method? |
Syene is not due south of Alexandria and the
distance between the two towns is about 4,530 stades (not 5,000) |
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14.
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Where did Hipparchus do most of his astronomical
work? |
on the island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea |
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15.
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When did Hipparchus die? |
around 127 BC |
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16.
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How did the European Space Agency honor Hipparchus’
work and why is it so fitting? |
they named a satellite after him; that satellite
was used to determine the positions of the stars to unprecedented
accuracy; this is fitting because Hipparchus was the first to record the
positions of the stars in the sky (something he claimed he did to be
able to tell time at night) |
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17.
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What did Hipparchus do with Babylonian eclipse
records? |
he compiled them and with other measurements
predicted eclipses hundreds of year in the future |
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18.
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What are Hipparchus’ two greatest discoveries? |
he discovered the precession of the equinoxes and
attempted (somewhat successfully) to determine the distances between
objects in the solar system and their sizes |
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19.
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What causes true north to move away from the North
Star? |
the fact that earth’s axis is on a tilt of about 23
degrees and that this axis “wobbles” (makes a cone) |
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20.
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Currently, which star is our North Star? |
Polaris |
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21.
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What will our North Star be in 13,000 years? |
Vega |
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22.
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What will our North Star be in 26,00 years and why? |
Polaris; by that time, the earth’s axis will have
completed one full “wobble” (each “wobble” takes 26,000 years to
complete) |
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23.
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What other “movement” is caused by the way the
earth tilts on its axis and the way the axis isn’t fixed in space? |
well, the precession of the equinoxes, which is how
the sun is positioned relative to the other stars; at the spring and
fall equinoxes during the 26,000 year “wobble,” the sun moves around the
sky through different constellations |
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24.
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Which celestial objects did Hipparchus estimate and
what about them did he estimate? |
the sun and the moon; for both he estimated their
sizes and the distances that separate them from earth |
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25.
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What did Hipparchus use to make his estimates about
the celestial objects he was studying? |
he used an eclipse of the sun that occurred on
March 14, 190 BC in the Middle East |
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26.
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What did Hipparchus conclude about the distance of
the moon from earth? |
that it was about 71 times the radius of the earth
(currently accepted value is 60x) |
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27.
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What did Hipparchus conclude about the distance of
the sun from earth? |
that it was 490 times the radius of the earth, or
about 194,000 miles |
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28.
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Which of Hipparchus’ estimates about distance was
less accurate? |
the distance between the sun and the earth (moon to
earth was much more accurate); his estimate was 194,000 miles and the
actual distance (as we know it today) is roughly 93 million miles |
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29.
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Who is Thales of Miletus, what is he credited with,
and what are some legends about him? |
he is the “Father of Science”; his students devised
the earth, fire, water, and air system for explaining the properties of
materials;
as for legends:
1.
it is said he fell into a ditch because he was looking up at the
stars
2.
he supposedly stopped a battle between Medes and the Lyrians by
predicting an eclipse in 584 BC |
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30.
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Where does the sun-centered theory of the universe
seem of have started and what argument was made to defend this idea? |
seems to have started with Pythagoras’ followers;
he argued that since fire was the purest element it should be located at
the center of things |
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31.
|
Who is universally credited by ancient authors as
producing a sun-centered theory? |
Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310-230 BC) |
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32.
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What is the name of the surviving work written by
Aristarchus? |
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon
(no mention of a heliocentric theory in there, though) |
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33.
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Who wrote the following and in what work:
“[Aristarchus’s] hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the sun are
stationary, and that Earth is borne in a circular orbit around the
sun.”? |
Archimedes in his the Sandreckoner |
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34.
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What worked against a heliocentric theory being
accepted until Copernicus? |
Ptolemy’s flawed arguments and the religious
convictions that the home of humanity had to occupy the central spot in
the universe (gosh, such big egos we have) |
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35.
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How did stellar parallax factor into the arguments
AGAINST the heliocentric theory? |
scientists argued that if the earth moves in a
circle around the sun, then the stars should appear to move in the sky
from one season to the next; unfortunately, earlier astronomers didn’t
have the instruments to see that the stars actually DO move |
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36.
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What was Aristarchus’s argument about stellar
parallax? |
that the stars were too far away for us to see the
parallax (and he was right) |
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37.
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According to James Trefil, is a heliocentric theory
of the universe an accomplishment that can be credited to the ancient
astronomers? |
no; although Aristarchus had it together, there
just wasn’t enough evidence to support it at that time and not enough of
his contemporaries bought into the idea |
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38.
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Who studied Ptolemy’s work while Europe sunk into
the Dark Ages? |
Arabic astronomers; they refined their observations
and produced commentaries on the Almagest |
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39.
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Who translated the Almagest, from what
language into what language, and when? |
Gerard of Cremona translated it from Arabic to
Latin in 1175 AD |
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40.
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What happened to Ptolemy’s work after it was
translated about 1000 years after he wrote it? |
it was incorporated along with works of Aristotle
and Plato into university curricula for study |
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41.
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What year was Nicolas Copernicus born and when did
he die? |
1473-1543 |
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42.
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What work did Copernicus study closely as part of
his intellectual hobby of studying astronomy? |
Almagest |
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43.
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When did Archimedes die? |
212 AD |
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44.
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Between what years did Aristarchus live? |
c. 310-230 BC |
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45.
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Whose theory of the universe was the basis of
European thought from the 12 century AD onward? |
Aristotle’s theory of 56 spheres with the earth
fixed at the center |
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46.
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Whose theories of the universe was the basis of
technical astronomers’ thinking from about the 12th century
onward? |
Ptolemy’s theories of epicycles and deferents as
detailed in his Almagest |
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47.
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Who began the reform of European astronomy in the
fifteenth century? |
astronomer/humanist Georg Peurbach (1423-1461) and
his student Johannes Regiomontanus (1436-1476) |
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48.
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How did those involved in reforming European
astronomy go about doing it? |
they concentrated on getting rid of errors in texts
(like Ptolemy’s Almagest) by going back to original Greek texts
and providing deeper insight into the thoughts of the original authors |
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49.
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What three astronomy-related problems were facing
the inhabitants of Europe at the beginning of the 16th
century? |
1.
tables that were used to predict things like eclipses and
conjunctions were not accurate enough
2.
Portuguese and Spanish expeditions involved sailing out to areas
with no land to be seen for weeks and the explorers needed astronomical
methods with which to navigate and position themselves
3.
the calendar instituted by Julius Caesar in 44 BC was no longer
accurate |
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50.
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What happened to the calendar instituted by Julius
Caesar? |
the equinox had shifted dates considerably (10
days), and religious events like Easter were determined by referencing
the equinox, so the calendar was out of whack with celestial events and
that was a big problem to Europeans of the 16th century |
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51.
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What did Copernicus study at the University of
Cracow that helped him eventually produce his own theories about
astronomy? |
the works of Peurbach and Regiomontaus on the
Almagest |
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52.
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What jobs did Copernicus have during his lifetime? |
physician, lawyer, and church administrator
(astronomy was a hobby for him) |
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53.
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What text did Copernicus publish, where, and when? |
De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (“On the
Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs”); Nuremberg, 1543 (year of his death) |
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54.
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Who did Copernicus dedicate his book to and why
might we find it ironic? |
Pope Paul III; because Copernicus’s book proposed a
heliocentric theory of the universe and pretty much everyone else at the
time, especially Christians who felt that humans had a preferred and
central place in God’s universe, whole-heartedly believed in a
geocentric universe |
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55.
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Who wrote the anonymous preface to Copernicus’s
text? |
Andreas Osiander, the Protestant reformer of
Nuremberg |
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56.
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What was said in the preface to Copernicus’s book
about the book? |
that it was a mathematical hypothesis only, not a
cosmological “truth” (so to speak) |
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57.
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What tradition did Copernicus’s book follow in and
how? |
it followed in the tradition of the Almagest
in that it was mainly a mathematical work just like the Almagest |
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58.
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What was significant about “Book 1” in Copernicus’s
text? |
it was where Copernicus stated his theory that the
sun was the center of the universe and that the earth had a triple
motion around it; this theory gave a proper explanation for retrograde
motions and officially settled the order of the planets |
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59.
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What shape were the planetary orbits Copernicus
proposed in his theory? |
they were circles |
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60.
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Describe the kinds of earthly motion that
Copernicus included as part of his theory. |
there were 3 kinds:
1.
the earth’s rotation about its center
2.
an annual motion around the sun
3.
and a conical motion of the earth’s axis of rotation—this last
bit was to account for the precession of the equinoxes, but Copernicus
got it a bit wrong, stating that this conical motion happened with a
period about equal to a year instead of what we believe now (based on
Newton) that the conical motion takes 26,000 years |
22;
see the notes on p. 90 |
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61.
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How did people in the 16th century react
to Copernicus’s book? |
they rejected his heliocentric hypothesis almost
universally, however the text was admired as the most sophisticated
astronomical treatise since Ptolemy’s Almagest |
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62.
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What happened to the mathematical constructions
Copernicus included in his book when they were received by 16th
century astronomers? |
they were easily transferred into mathematical
constructions that fit the geocentric model and these were then used
widely by astronomers |
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63.
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Who published the Prutenic Tables, when, and
what were they? |
Erasmus Reinhold, 1551, and these tables supporting
a geocentric model were based on Copernicus’s parameters but were
considered more accurate by other astronomers of the time |
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64.
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Who was the most remarkable early follower of
Copernicus’s theory and what did he do with Copernicus’s work? |
Thomas Digges (c. 1545-1595); he translated a large
part of Book I of De Revolutionibus into English and illustrated
it with a diagram of the copernican arrangement of the planets imbedded
in an infinite universe of stars; this translation appeared in A
Perfit Description of the Coelestiall Orbes |
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65.
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Why did it take time for Copernicus’s theory to
become accepted? |
thinkers had been raised on Aristotelian notions of
the divisions of the earth and the heavens and on his system of physics,
the latter was the only system that made sense in describing how bodies
moved to their natural places (stones falling—heavy bodies fell to the
center of the universe… why would stones fall to earth if it wasn’t the
center?) |
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66.
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How long after Copernicus published his theories
did it take for a new physics to be devised to fit his theory? |
about 100 to 150 years; until about 1650-1700 |
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67.
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What two people were instrumental in the
development of a new physics after Copernicus published his theories? |
Galileo and Johannes Kepler |
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68.
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What major religious figure dismissed Copernicus’s
theory in 1539 before it was even fully published and why was it
dismissed? |
Martin Luther; because a heliocentric model clashed
with many biblical passages and teachings of the Christian church |
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69.
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Which Christians more quickly accepted Copernicus’s
theory and why? |
Protestants, because they had some freedom to
interpret the Bible personally unlike Catholics especially during the
Counter Reformation (Spain and Italy in particular) |
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70.
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What Jesuit mathematician used biblical arguments
against Copernicus’s theory in the 16th century? |
Christoph Clavius; he published these arguments as
part of his astronomical textbook (arguments apparently appeared from
1570 to 1612 when he died) |
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71.
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Who devised a hybrid geostatic heliocentric system
in the late 16th century and what did it involve? |
Tycho Brahe; the earth was fixed and the moon and
sun revolved around it, but the other planets went around the sun |
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72.
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What was able to be maintained under the geostatic
heliocentric system? |
Aristotelian physics |
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73.
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What invention led many astronomers to switch over
to the geostatic heliocentric system? |
Galileo’s invention of the telescope |
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74.
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When did Church officials take notice of
Copernicus’s book and what did they do with it when they noticed it? |
not until after 1610, after Galileo defended it in
several texts including some defenses that referenced how Copernicus’s
theory doesn’t conflict with bible stories and teachings, and after
Paolo Antonio Foscarini (a Carmelite theologian in Naples) argued in a
book that the Copernican system didn’t conflict with Scripture;
they placed De Revolutionibus on the Index
of Forbidden Books |
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75.
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Who wrote Sidereus Nuncius, when, and what
did it have to do with Copernicus? |
Galileo, 1610; it brought his theory to a wide
audience |
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76.
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Who did Galileo write a letter to about a bible
passage in the book of Joshua and what did he say about the passage? |
the Grand Duchess Christina; he interpreted the
problematic passage in Joshua to conform to a heliocentric cosmology |
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77.
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Who wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief
World Systems, when was it published, and what did it do for
Copernicus’s theory? |
Galileo, 1632, it undermined Aristotelian physics
and cosmology for an increasingly receptive audience |
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78.
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What did Galileo use to bolster his arguments in
the geocentric-heliocentric debate? |
his telescopic discoveries (they didn’t prove
heliocentric cosmology, but they helped support it) |
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79.
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When did Johannes Kepler die? |
1630 |
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80.
|
What text did Kepler publish, what was it based
upon, and what was so important about it? |
his Rudolphine Tables, which were based on
his own elliptical theories about the orbits of the planets and Tycho
Brahe’s accurate observations; these tables were by far the most
accurate ever and this helped push the favor toward the heliocentric
theory |
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81.
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