The Mayan calendar
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY
Ancient astronomy is a very important page in the history of science, because in Ancient Greece for almost two centuries that the fundamental foundations of the universe and the structure of the Universe were laid. The mathematical methods of ancient astronomers were later used by both medieval Arabs and European astronomers.
Eudoxus was an outstanding scientist of the fourth century. He was one of the most prominent mathematicians of antiquity: he developed the General theory of proportions and became the forerunner of modern integral calculus. It is very likely that Eudoxus is responsible for the proofs given by Aristotle about the spherical shape of the Earth, and even Archimedes mentions the ratio of distances to the moon and Sun calculated by Eudoxus (1:12).
It is impossible not to say about Aristotle, whose authority in the middle Ages really held back the progress of astronomy. The theory that the Earth is the center of the Universe, to which all objects tend, was very popular and accepted as an unshakable truth. But at the same time, it is in combination with this theory that Aristotle, in his book “On the sky”, proved the spherical nature of the Earth, using as arguments eclipses of the moon and observations of the stars.
Another ancient scientist who made a huge contribution to science is Eratosthenes. For the first time, he measured the length of the earth’s circumference fairly accurately, using a homemade device called a scaphis. Eratosthenes concluded that the earth’s circumference is 39,690 kilometers. If we take into account the unreliability of the initial data and the roughness of the measuring instruments, Eratosthenes actually approached the figure of 40 thousand kilometers, equal to the circumference of the Earth.
Aristarchus of Samos, who lived in the third century BC, can rightly be called the Copernicus of the ancient world, because he was the first to propose and try to prove the heliocentric model of the Solar system. He found that the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth, in addition to turning around its axis, also turns around the Sun, and this movement is characteristic of all planets. Aristarchus also stated for the first time that all the stars in the night sky are mobile, and only because of their distance do we think that they are stationary. The theory of Aristarchus could not be accepted by his contemporaries, too much would have to be changed. It was impossible for scientists to believe that the Earth was also a celestial body like Mars and Venus, because then the thousand-year-old idea of the Sky would have collapsed. Rejecting heliocentrism, the scientist’s contemporaries accused him of blasphemy and banished him from Alexandria. Almost five centuries later, Ptolemy will find arguments that refute the movement of the Earth. It will take several epochs for heliocentrism to be accepted by humans.
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
Nicholas Copernicus can rightly be considered the man who stopped the Sun and moved the Earth, because he was the first in Europe to formulate and scientifically justify the heliocentric system of the world.
Orphaned early, Copernicus was educated in Italy. While studying at the University, Nicolaus Copernicus showed excellent results in mathematics and theology, but it was then that he became particularly interested in astronomy. After receiving a doctorate in Canon law, Copernicus returned to his native Poland at the age of 30. Copernicus made all his notes in Latin or German – there is not a single paper known that he made in Polish. Copernicus had a perfect command of the ancient Greek language. Moreover, the first translation of a text from ancient Greek into Polish was made by him.
The first works of Copernicus, revealing the mechanics of the celestial bodies, were freely distributed and even admired in Church circles, but as soon as the Church realized that his work “undermines the foundations”, the books were banned. The main statements in the Copernicus heliocentric system were as follows: the celestial spheres and orbits do not have a common center, as Aristotle claimed; the center of the Earth is only the center of mass and the center of the moon’s orbit, not the center of the Universe; the distance between the Earth and the fixed stars is much greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and all the planets move in orbits centered on the Sun. These statements completely contradicted the prevailing idea of the structure of the universe at that time, according to which the Central position in the Universe is occupied by a stationary Earth, around which the Sun, Moon, planets and stars rotate. In 1616 under Pope Paul V, the Catholic Church officially banned the Copernican theory and the protection of the heliocentric system of the world, since this interpretation contradicts the Scriptures, although the heliocentric model was still allowed to be used for mathematical calculations of the movement of the planets. Copernicus was also one of the first to Express the idea of universal gravitation.
Contrary to popular belief, no one burned Nicholas Copernicus at the stake. He lived a long life, and died at home at the age of 70. The grave of the great scientist was discovered only in 2008, the authenticity of his remains was confirmed by a DNA test.
ASTRONOMY OF THE EAST
The Arabs, having conquered the Arabian Peninsula, formed in the VIII – X century a powerful state – the Arab Caliphate. As early as the seventh century, the treasures of ancient science fell into the hands of the Arabs, but these manuscripts were fully translated and used only by the eighth and ninth centuries. Despite this, Arab scholars wrote many encyclopedic works and essays. In 1417—1420, the grandson of the famous Central Asian conqueror Tamerlane, Ulugbek built the most famous Observatory in the Middle and near East. Working at this Observatory, Arab scientists together with Ulugbek achieved significant results by determining and measuring the Equatorial and horizontal coordinates of the stars, the tilt of the Ecliptic to the equator, the position of the spring equinox, and stellar coordinates; a special table was created to calculate lunar eclipses.
JOHANN KEPLER
Johann Kepler was born in the German state of Stuttgart on December 27, 1571 in a poor Protestant family. At the age of six in 1577 Kepler first saw a comet, the same comet was observed and described by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. In 1589 Kepler graduated from the school at the Maulbronn monastery, and for his outstanding abilities in almost all Sciences, the city authorities awarded him a scholarship to help him further his studies, but Johann was very sickly, ailments followed him all his life.
At the end of the XVI century in many cities of Europe, there was an open confrontation between groups of people who had different ideas about the structure of the Universe. And in 1600, both exiles – Kepler and Brahe – met in Prague, but it soon became clear that the way Kepler represented astronomy, Tycho Brahe shared only partially. To preserve the already relatively outdated model of the universe, according to which the Central position in the Universe is occupied by the stationary Earth, Brahe proposed a compromise model: all the planets, except the Earth, rotate around the Sun, and the Sun rotates around the stationary Earth (geo-heliocentric system of the world).
The three laws of planetary motion formed by Kepler gave answers to many questions related to the shape of the orbit and the speed of the planets.
Kepler’s first law (the law of ellipses): “Every planet’s orbit is an ellipse with the Sun at a focus.”
Kepler’s second law (law of squares):