History of astronomy

How is the different between ancient Chinese astronomy and the western Astronomy is one of the most ancient disciplines and it can be traced back to around thousands of years ago. (Unsold et al 2001, p.6) As for the ancient Chinese astronomy and ancient western astronomy during their origin period both had a very similar purpose – fate and surviving. More specifically, when ancient human realized to observe stars by naked eyes, they all thought the stars and sky are holy; during the ancient time, surviving is the most important thing for humans so through observing the movement of moon and sun they began to make calendar for food surplus and planting.( Cicotello&Louisa 2007 ) However, along with the time going on, the usage, purposes and observing…

knowledge. Vesalius was not motivated to innovate, but instead to return medical practices to those of the ancient past and correct the false information that had been spread during the late Roman Empire and Middle Ages. At around the same time period as Vesalius, Andreas Copernicus was about to publish his groundbreaking work On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. This book would introduce the idea of the heliocentric model5 to a large audience for the first time and eventually…

really do hang together. But why is there great resistance to science by so many religious believers? It is partly because faith, theology, and spirituality have always been closely tied to a particular age’s picture of the natural world. In biblical times, for example, the religious drama of salvation assumed a three-level picture of the cosmos (Gibson, 2011). The heavens fixed firmly above. The Earth beneath. Then, lower still, the underworld. In the 17th century most religious believers took…

Man Isn’t Center of the Universe Anymore? Before the sixteenth century, the common knowledge of astronomy was based off the Pythagoras, Aristotle, and the Ptolemaic model. They said the Earth was the center of the universe and everything, including the sun, planets, and the heavenly spheres rotated about its center. Aristotle established the principle that there were only seven planets considered wandering stars: Earth, moon, sun, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter. Anything besides these stars…

Galileo’s Contributions Galileo Galilei, an Italian astronomer, played a major role in the scientific revolution. He laid the foundation of modern physics and astronomy. Initially, he studied medicine at the University of Pisa, but lost interest. Soon after that, Galileo developed an interest in mathematics and physics and began observing our solar system. While observing the solar system, he developed his own scientific method.. He later helped develop the modern scientific method, which…

“The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism and Celestial order” by Robert Westman. Published in 2011 The piece revolves around Copernicus and his contributions to both the philosophical and scientific spheres. It raises questions about his incentives to pursue and his mindset while pursuing what he thought was “truth” especially with the knowledge of possibly being ridiculed and rejected by his peers. With this it also reveals a feel of the society of that time as we are entreated to…

the ancient belief in the uniform circular motions of the planets. Kepler’s new model is not only one of the greatest achievement in astronomy, but also advanced our understanding into modern physical concepts like gravity. In the sixteen hundreds, although more…

During the early 17th century, many people were still very divided on the issues concerning the motion of the earth and the sun. The church argued for geocentrism while many other scholars and individuals argued for heliocentrism. However, this fight over the Earth’s movements was not only centered around the natural sciences, but the interpretation of the bible (Westman, 11/8). This discussion included a debate on the power and authority of the church due to the Bible influencing the view of…

Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, Copernicus argued, “ ... the planets orbited the sun rather than the Earth.”Nicolaus argues that the sun is motionless in the center, not the earth. In his book, he also claims there are eight spheres orbiting the sun, and the moon rotates around the earth. Nevertheless, Copernicus did not reject Aristotle’s theory of circular orbits. Hence, when introducing his mathematical calculations he withheld about half of Ptolemy’s epicycles. At the time, Copernicus…

The breakthroughs achieved by Galileo, Kepler, and Newton revolutionized our worlds understanding of the universe. They were willing to accept the consequences of their discoveries, and made surmountable contributions to the furtherment astronomy. Early astronomy at one time called archaeoastronom, struggled to comprehend how the universe allied with the nature of human kind. Early Greek astronomy searched for understanding outside traditional religious beliefs, and assumed a more philosophical…