A short history of Astronomy Bernie Brenner PostGrad Cert Astronomy (Swinburne) Pelvic Floor Clinic North Shore
A short history of Astronomy
Bernie BrennerPostGrad Cert Astronomy (Swinburne)
Pelvic Floor ClinicNorth Shore
Stonehenge
Chinese
• Guest star Comet Halley ?1059 BC
• Guest star – supernova Crab Nebula July 1054
Greeks
• Pythagoras of Samos 580 BC
• Aristotle 384 BC
• Aristarchus 310 BC
• Eratosthenes 276 BC
• Ptolemy 85 AD
Islamic Astronomy
• 8th to 14th century
• Contributions – Equatorium (analog computer)– Planisphere– Mechanical lunisolar calendar
computer– Spherical astrolabe– Many stars have Arabic names
Nicolas Copernicus 1473
• Mathematician, physician, canon
• De Revolutionibus – published on his death bed
Age of Empirism
• Tycho Brahe
1546 -1601
• Johannes Kepler
1571 – 1630
• Galileo Galilei
1564 - 1642
Isaac Newton 1643 - 1727
• “Principia”– Universal gravitation– 3 laws of motion
• Every body remains at rest unless acted on by an external force
• F = ma• Action – reaction law
Albert Einstein 1879 - 1955
• E = mc^2
• Laws of general and special relativity
Spectroscopy
• Newton 1666 – prism• Wollaston 1801 –
dark lines• Fraunhofer lines 1821• Doppler 1840• Draper Catalog 1918• Hertzsprung-Russell
diagram 1922
Astronomer Doctors
• Ibn al-Haytham 965 AD• Abu ibn Sina 980 AD• Jacob ben Machir 1236 AD• Nicholas Copernicus 1473• Galileo Galilei 1564• Heinrich Olbers 1758• William Wollaston 1766• Henry Draper 1837