ASTR 5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Copernican Revolution, Apparent Retrograde Motion, Atomism
Document Summary
Chapter 2: the science of life in the universe. Review questions: (3) characteristics of greek thinking that helped pave the way for the development of modern science: Greek philosophers developed a tradition of trying to understand nature without resorting to supernatural explanations. The greeks developed mathematics in the form of geometry. Summarize development of greek geocentric model, from thales through ptolemy. Model of nature scientific models: conceptual representation which purpose is to explain and predict observed phenomena. Anaximander (student of thales) suggested the celestial sphere in order to explain the way the sky turns around the pole star each day. Pythagoras adopted the spherical earth for philosophical reasons: mathematical perfection where spheres are geometrically perfect. Earth"s curved shadow on the moon during lunar eclipses. All of this led to the adoption of the geocentric model, with a spherical earth at the center of a celestial sphere.
