Ancient Civilisations that Studied Astronomy

In this video we’ll discuss some ancient civilizations that have brought significant impacts in our understanding of modern astronomy.

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:08 Arab
1:58 Babylonia
3:18 China
4:23 Egypt
5:23 Greece
6:29 India

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SCRIPT:

1. #Arab civilisation
During the medieval period, scientists in the islamic world had made many contributions to astronomy. They updated the methods for measuring the movement of celestial bodies, and continued to develop models of the universe. Between the 8th and 10th century, Baghdad was a major centre for astronomy. During this time, scientists translated studies in Sanskrit, Greek and Pahlavi into Arabic for the first time.

By taking advantage of existing research, the medieval astronomers learned the methods to track the position of celestial objects. And at the time they were: the sun, the moon, and the five known planets. Since the islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, Arabic researchers learned about the passage of the sun and the moon in the sky.

2. Ancient #Babylonia
Their biggest accomplishment was undoubtedly this! The design and creation of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But not only that, they also made major contributions in other fields. Astronomy had an important influence in Babylonian culture in which they developed a new empirical approach to science. Some scholars refer to it as the first scientific revolution in astronomy, as this way was later adopted and refined by the Greeks.

Because most of their studies are in the form of clay tablets, there are not many resources left from the Babylonian era that we could find today. But, according to a newly translated tablet, ancient Babylonian astronomers were the first to use a modern method, to track the path of Jupiter. Here’s how they did it.

Babylonian astronomers plotted a 60-day portion of Jupiter’s path across the sky on a graph, with time plotted on one axis and velocity on the other axis. So what is velocity multiplied by time? Exactly a distance. So the final figure that they got looked like a trapezoid, and the area under that curvature is the total distance that Jupiter travelled in 60 days.

3. Ancient China
With their flourishing history, ancient China also made important contributions to astronomy. They started observing stars and named them. A record of which has been found on bones, buried in the ground.

While the European continent experienced the Dark Ages, the thriving civilization in China, as well as those in Arabia and India, achieved major advances in science, astronomy and medicine. Chinese astronomers recorded 1600 observations, both solar and lunar eclipses from 750 BC.

We all might already be familiar with the first observation of Jupiter, this one by Galileo. But according to a recent paper, an ancient Chinese astronomer named Gan De, said.. “there was a small pink star beside the planet Jupiter. We, therefore, conclude that this is a satellite of Jupiter.” It is evident that Gan De had already seen satellites of Jupiter with his naked eyes. They knew about them 2000 years prior to Galileo.

4. Ancient #Egypt
Just like the other civilizations, the Egyptians studied the night sky by taking measurements from the stars. It was to accurately align their pyramids and sun temples with the earth's four cardinal points. A great example is the Pyramid of Giza. Ancient Egyptians built huge obelisks, which probably also served as simple clocks. At night, people could estimate the time by observing the moon, or by observing the constellations.

The origins of our modern clocks can be traced back to ancient Egypt, 4000 years ago. They divided daytime and night time in 12 equal parts, which is how we got 12 hours for am and pm By about 1500 BC, Egyptians had abandoned star clocks in favor of clocks that measure time by the flow of water.

These water clocks had the advantage of working even when the sky was cloudy. Eventually these water clocks were adopted by many other cultures for time-keeping.

5. Ancient Greece
The development of astronomy by the Greek and specifically hellenistic astronomers, is considered to be a major phase. Greece gradually rose as a power around 800 B.C. It is strategically located at a crossroad for travellers, merchants, and armies. So ancient Greece was a centre of diverse ideas, brought together by many cultures.

The Greeks used mathematics to prove their predictions, and they didn’t only rely on supernatural explanations. One of their most important models was the geocentric model of the universe, which basically means that a spherical Earth was at the centre.