Astronomy 1021 Chapter 3: AS-Ch. 3 Notes
16 Dec 2017
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Astronomy is an observations; science, we cannot perform experiments on stars. Astronomy has been called the oldest science because it stretches so far back. For example, ancient africans learned how to predict the rainy season based on the orientation of the crescent moon in respect to the horizon. The seven days of the week were named after the visible" planets in the sky (sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, saturn) We trace origins of modern clock to ancient egypt who split up our day into two equal parts of twelve hours. The lunar phases repeats itself on the same days (based on the solar calendar) every 19 years (called a metonic cycle) Modern science can trace much of its history back to ancient. The greeks didn"t resort to supernatural reasoning: they used models to explain their reasoning, scientific models are conceptual representations to explain and predict phenomena.
