Urania, the Greek muse of astronomy; Albani Collection, the Louvre.
In most cases, the ancient astronomers studied only the motions of the planets with no thought to a physical underlying cause. Thus, the starting point for the Greek philosophers might be the cosmology represented to the right.
However, the ancient Greeks developed philosophical schools and universities that made them the center of learning in the classical world long after their city-states had lost their dominant military and economic power. They too made precise astronomical observations. For example, Hipparchus, who lived around 200 B.C., discovered that the location of the sun against the stars on the first day of spring is slowly moving eastward (this effect is called precession -- astrologers do not take precession into account so when they say that the sun is in Scorpius on a particular date, for example, the sun was in Scorpius 2000 years ago on that date!). In addition, they drew on the immense body of accurate observations and the mathematical techniques developed by the Babylonians, and refined and advanced them.
Most importantly, ancient Greece introduced the concept of physics, and initiated scientific thought in generalbuttonbook.jpg (10323 bytes) The essence of their approach was to ask what could underly the things they observed in nature, such as the motions of the planets buttonbook.jpg (10323 bytes) With regard to the motions of the planets, they were swayed strongly by mathematical and philosophical arguments that demanded that constant speed circular motion should be able to explain all the observations. This belief was based purely on aesthetic arguments; although it had no experimental backing, it had a strong influence on attempts to understand the motions of the planets for nearly the next 2000 years!Although they introduced the possibility that the earth moved around the sun, rather than vice versa, Even for the Greeks science was still mixed up with aesthetics and philosophy. Thus, some of their other reasons to prefer that the sun revolved around the earth seem less scientific than the issue
Answers & Comments
Answer:
Urania, the Greek muse of astronomy; Albani Collection, the Louvre.
In most cases, the ancient astronomers studied only the motions of the planets with no thought to a physical underlying cause. Thus, the starting point for the Greek philosophers might be the cosmology represented to the right.
However, the ancient Greeks developed philosophical schools and universities that made them the center of learning in the classical world long after their city-states had lost their dominant military and economic power. They too made precise astronomical observations. For example, Hipparchus, who lived around 200 B.C., discovered that the location of the sun against the stars on the first day of spring is slowly moving eastward (this effect is called precession -- astrologers do not take precession into account so when they say that the sun is in Scorpius on a particular date, for example, the sun was in Scorpius 2000 years ago on that date!). In addition, they drew on the immense body of accurate observations and the mathematical techniques developed by the Babylonians, and refined and advanced them.
Most importantly, ancient Greece introduced the concept of physics, and initiated scientific thought in generalbuttonbook.jpg (10323 bytes) The essence of their approach was to ask what could underly the things they observed in nature, such as the motions of the planets buttonbook.jpg (10323 bytes) With regard to the motions of the planets, they were swayed strongly by mathematical and philosophical arguments that demanded that constant speed circular motion should be able to explain all the observations. This belief was based purely on aesthetic arguments; although it had no experimental backing, it had a strong influence on attempts to understand the motions of the planets for nearly the next 2000 years!Although they introduced the possibility that the earth moved around the sun, rather than vice versa, Even for the Greeks science was still mixed up with aesthetics and philosophy. Thus, some of their other reasons to prefer that the sun revolved around the earth seem less scientific than the issue
Explanation:
Correct me if I'm wrong