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astronomy w/ the universe
astronomy. making sense.
the imaginative scientists who looked up with wonder.
ASTRONOMY
Science vs. Religion
God Created The Heaven And The Earth
“God Gets What God Wants” b/ Roger Waters
and the Earth is the Center of the Universe.
ARISTOTLE
384 B.C. to 322 B.C
Greek Philosopher and Scientist
Considered one of the greatest thinkers
politics
psychology
ethics.
attended PLATO’s Academy at 17.
Tutored Alexander the Great (338 B.C.)
FIRST TO IMAGINE
The Sun, The Moon, and The Planets
All Revolving Around a Spherical Earth.
THE ORBIT
VOYAGER
“Save Pluto”
The Return
Planetary Slalom
MERCURY
VENUS
EARTH
MARS
JUPITER
SATURN
URANUS
NEPTUNE
PLUTO
Comets
Moons
Blocks Of Ice?
STARGAZERS
Ptolemy
Accepted Aristotle’s Orbit (Theory)
The Sun, the Moon, and the planets, revolving around a spherical Earth.
Ptolemy developed this GEOCENTRIC idea through observation and mathematical analysis.
He rejected the claim (hypothesis) that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
A claim made by Aristarchus of Samos, also in Alexandria, 350 years earlier.
Obviously a good theory, but like all science challenged by those who speak for God,
Aristarchus couldn’t prove it.
THE NAKED TRUTH
Based on observations he made with his naked eye,
Ptolemy imagined the Universe as a set of nested, transparent spheres,
with EARTH IN THE CENTER
He posited that the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the Sun all revolved around Earth.
Beyond Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (the only other planets visible with a naked eye),
Lay One Final Sphere, with all the stars (revolving around each other) fixed to it.
Ptolemy used HIPPARCHUS’ 200-year-old notion of EPICYCLES, to work out his calculations.
EPICYCLES WERE SMALL CIRCULAR ORBITS
around imaginary centers on which the planets were said to move
while making a revolution around the Earth.
The tables Ptolemy charted and figured were used by future astronomers
to accurately predict ECLIPSES and the day-to-day POSITIONS OF THE PLANETS.
Because visible events in the sky confirmed Ptolemy’s views,
HIS GEOCENTRIC THEORY WAS BELIEVED AS GOD’S HONEST TRUTH FOR 1400 YEARS.
AND THEN CAME COPERNICUS
1543.
Copernicus
EVERYTHING REVOLVES AROUND THE SUN
The Sun, rather than the Earth, was at the center of The Universe.
After the Roman Empire dissolved,
Muslim Arabs conquered Egypt in 641 CE.
Muslim scholars mostly accepted Ptolemy’s astronomy.
They referred to him as Batlamyus and
called his book on astronomy al-Magisti
“The Greatest.”
Islamic astronomers corrected some of Ptolemy’s errors and made other advances,
but they did not make the leap to a heliocentric (Sun-centered) universe.
Ptolemy’s book was translated into Latin in the 12th century,
The Almagest, from the Arabic name.
This enabled his teachings to be spread throughout Western Europe.
Galileo
Glass/ Lens/ Telescope
Spanish Inquisition
16th and 17th centuries, fear of heretics spreading teachings and opinions that contradicted the Bible dominated the Catholic Church.
They persecuted scientists who formed theories the Church deemed heretical
Forbade people from reading any books on those subjects, placing them on
The Index of Prohibited Books.
1564
STARGAZER
Astronomic Evolution
From Looking to the Sky
Galileo
Hubble
Voyager
Pioneer
Galileo Galilei
Pisa, Italy (Leaning Tower)
Astronomer
Physicist
Engineer
“Polymath”
Father of:
Observational Astronomy
The Scientific Method
Modern Science
Studied:
Speed
Velocity
Gravity
Free Fall
Relativity
Inertia
Projectile Motion
Pendulums
Hydrostatic Balances
invented:
Themoscope (Thermometer)
Military Compass
used:
THE TELESCOPE
to observe celestial bodies
confirmed:
Phases Of Venus
Jupiter Moons (four largest)
Rings Of Saturn
Sun Spots
followed:
COPERNICUS’ “SOLAR SYSTEM” VIEW
(Copernicanism / Heliocentrism)
Controversial during his lifetime (1564-1642)
Most subscribed to geocentric models (The Tychonic System)
Galileo met with opposition from astronomers who doubted heliocentrism
Questioned the absence of an observed stellar parallax
1615
The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615
The Church Concluded
Heliocentrism was “foolish and absurd in philosophy
formally heretical as it explicitly contradicts “The Sense of Holy Scripture”
SCIENCE vs. RELIGION
1632
Galileo defended his views
“Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”
Appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII
Alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.
He was tried by the Inquisition,
Found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” and forced to recant.
Sentenced to Life in Imprisonment.
Still under arrest, he died nine years later (1642).
While imprisoned, he wrote “Two New Sciences”
A summary of work he had done some forty years earlier
Two sciences now called:
KINEMATICS
STRENGTH OF MATERIALS
Astronomy
History Of Science
The Catholic Church
17th Century Scientific Revolution
Sir Issac Newton (1705)
WAR OF THE WORLDS
Science vs. Religion
Casualties Of War
Nicholas Copernicus (1500)
Galileo Galilei (1633)
The Persecuted
The Starry Messenger b/ Galileo Galilei
“Cosmic Messenger” b/ Jean Luc-Ponty
Galileo was jailed for heresy for being the first scientist to write Earth orbited around the Sun, and that the Earth was not the Center Of The Universe, as the Catholic Church had always preached. The Starry Messenger was banned in 1633, and Galileo was sentenced to Life Imprisonment, and remained in custody until his death in 1642.
Sir Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
January 4, 1643
March 31, 1727
Isaac Newton helped develop the principles of modern physics, including the laws of motion, and is credited as one of the great minds of the 17th-century Scientific Revolution.
In 1687, Newton published his most acclaimed work, ‘Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica’ (‘Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy’), which has been called the single most influential book on physics.
Newton’s theory of gravity states that two objects attract each other with a force of gravitational attraction that’s proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.
“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
—Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician famous for his laws of physics. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century.
Isaac Newton was a physicist and mathematician who developed the principles of modern physics, including the laws of motion and is credited as one of the great minds of the 17th-century Scientific Revolution.
In 1687, he published his most acclaimed work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), which has been called the single most influential book on physics. In 1705, he was knighted by Queen Anne of England, making him Sir Isaac Newton.
Newton was born on January 4, 1643, in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. Using the “old” Julian calendar, Newton’s birth date is sometimes displayed as December 25, 1642.
Newton was the only son of a prosperous local farmer, also named Isaac, who died three months before he was born. A premature baby born tiny and weak, Newton was not expected to survive.
When he was 3 years old, his mother, Hannah Ayscough Newton, remarried a well-to-do minister, Barnabas Smith, and went to live with him, leaving young Newton with his maternal grandmother.
The experience left an indelible imprint on Newton, later manifesting itself as an acute sense of insecurity. He anxiously obsessed over his published work, defending its merits with irrational behavior.
At age 12, Newton was reunited with his mother after her second husband died. She brought along her three small children from her second marriage.
Newton was enrolled at the King’s School in Grantham, a town in Lincolnshire, where he lodged with a local apothecary and was introduced to the fascinating world of chemistry.
His mother pulled him out of school at age 12. Her plan was to make him a farmer and have him tend the farm. Newton failed miserably, as he found farming monotonous. Newton was soon sent back to King’s School to finish his basic education.
Perhaps sensing the young man’s innate intellectual abilities, his uncle, a graduate of the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College, persuaded Newton’s mother to have him enter the university. Newton enrolled in a program similar to a work-study in 1661, and subsequently waited on tables and took care of wealthier students’ rooms.
Scientific Revolution
When Newton arrived at Cambridge, the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century was already in full force. The heliocentric view of the universe—theorized by astronomers Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler, and later refined by Galileo—was well known in most European academic circles.
Philosopher René Descartes had begun to formulate a new concept of nature as an intricate, impersonal and inert machine. Yet, like most universities in Europe, Cambridge was steeped in Aristotelian philosophy and a view of nature resting on a geocentric view of the universe, dealing with nature in qualitative rather than quantitative terms.
During his first three years at Cambridge, Newton was taught the standard curriculum but was fascinated with the more advanced science. All his spare time was spent reading from the modern philosophers. The result was a less-than-stellar performance, but one that is understandable, given his dual course of study.
It was during this time that Newton kept a second set of notes, entitled “Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae” (“Certain Philosophical Questions”). The “Quaestiones” reveal that Newton had discovered the new concept of nature that provided the framework for the Scientific Revolution. Though Newton graduated without honors or distinctions, his efforts won him the title of scholar and four years of financial support for future education.
In 1665, the bubonic plague that was ravaging Europe had come to Cambridge, forcing the university to close. After a two-year hiatus, Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667 and was elected a minor fellow at Trinity College, as he was still not considered a standout scholar.
In the ensuing years, his fortune improved. Newton received his Master of Arts degree in 1669, before he was 27. During this time, he came across Nicholas Mercator’s published book on methods for dealing with infinite series.
Newton quickly wrote a treatise, De Analysi, expounding his own wider-ranging results. He shared this with friend and mentor Isaac Barrow, but didn’t include his name as author.
In June 1669, Barrow shared the unaccredited manuscript with British mathematician John Collins. In August 1669, Barrow identified its author to Collins as “Mr. Newton … very young … but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things.”
Newton’s work was brought to the attention of the mathematics community for the first time. Shortly afterward, Barrow resigned his Lucasian professorship at Cambridge, and Newton assumed the chair.
Newton made discoveries in optics, motion and mathematics. Newton theorized that white light was a composite of all colors of the spectrum, and that light was composed of particles.
His momentous book on physics, Principia, contains information on nearly all of the essential concepts of physics except energy, ultimately helping him to explain the laws of motion and the theory of gravity. Along with mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Newton is credited for developing essential theories of calculus.
Newton’s first major public scientific achievement was designing and constructing a reflecting telescope in 1668. As a professor at Cambridge, Newton was required to deliver an annual course of lectures and chose optics as his initial topic. He used his telescope to study optics and help prove his theory of light and color.
The Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope in 1671, and the organization’s interest encouraged Newton to publish his notes on light, optics and color in 1672. These notes were later published as part of Newton’s Opticks: Or, A treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light.
The Apple Myth
Between 1665 and 1667, Newton returned home from Trinity College to pursue his private study, as school was closed due to the Great Plague. Legend has it that, at this time, Newton experienced his famous inspiration of gravity with the falling apple. According to this common myth, Newton was sitting under an apple tree when a fruit fell and hit him on the head, inspiring him to suddenly come up with the theory of gravity.
While there is no evidence that the apple actually hit Newton on the head, he did see an apple fall from a tree, leading him to wonder why it fell straight down and not at an angle. Consequently, he began exploring the theories of motion and gravity.
It was during this 18-month hiatus as a student that Newton conceived many of his most important insights—including the method of infinitesimal calculus, the foundations for his theory of light and color, and the laws of planetary motion—that eventually led to the publication of his physics book Principia and his theory of gravity.
‘Principia’ and Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion
In 1687, following 18 months of intense and effectively nonstop work, Newton published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), most often known as Principia.
Principia is said to be the single most influential book on physics and possibly all of science. Its publication immediately raised Newton to international prominence.
Principia offers an exact quantitative description of bodies in motion, with three basic but important laws of motion:
First Law
A stationary body will stay stationary unless an external force is applied to it.
Second Law
Force is equal to mass times acceleration, and a change in motion (i.e., change in speed) is proportional to the force applied.
Third Law
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Newton and the Theory of Gravity
Newton’s three basic laws of motion outlined in Principia helped him arrive at his theory of gravity. Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that two objects attract each other with a force of gravitational attraction that’s proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.
These laws helped explain not only elliptical planetary orbits but nearly every other motion in the universe: how the planets are kept in orbit by the pull of the sun’s gravity; how the moon revolves around Earth and the moons of Jupiter revolve around it; and how comets revolve in elliptical orbits around the sun.
They also allowed him to calculate the mass of each planet, calculate the flattening of the Earth at the poles and the bulge at the equator, and how the gravitational pull of the sun and moon create the Earth’s tides. In Newton’s account, gravity kept the universe balanced, made it work, and brought heaven and Earth together in one great equation.
Living In The Past (Archeology)
JACQUES LE MOYNE
WILLIAM BARTRAM
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
JOHN PENNEKAMP
JEFF CARDENAS
