Eclipse*
- RonPrice
- Posts: 43
- Joined: August 9th, 2009, 8:17 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Plato
- Location: George town Tasmania Australia
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Eclipse*
“This was the big unknown for astronomy 250 years ago,” said Owen Gingerich, an emeritus professor of astronomy and history of science at Harvard. Without that number, much else about the solar system was also uncertain: the size of the Sun, the distance between planets, inter alia. The answer that came out of the worldwide 1769 observations was pretty close at 95 million miles. “Historically speaking, it was the beginning of big international science,” said Dr. Gingerich.
It was only in 1627 that anyone realized Venus transits occurred at all. That year, Johannes Kepler, the mathematician and astronomer, published data about the planetary orbits that predicted that Venus would pass directly between Earth and the Sun in 1631.-Ron Price with thanks to: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/sc...l?ref=eclipses
What a set of revolutions we’ve seen since Captain Cook was in Tahiti and we finally learned the distance to the Sun among other bodies in our solar system! What a story it has been in the last 250 years! We each follow these many revolutions as suits our tastes and interests. My particular interest is in the revolutions that have taken place in history, science, politics, the many social sciences, applied and physical sciences, indeed, in more areas than can be listed here: revolutions that have eclipsed so many things that have gone before.
* The term eclipse is derived from an ancient Greek noun, a noun which means "the abandonment", "the downfall", or "the darkening of a heavenly body." This noun is derived from a verb which means "to abandon", "to darken", or "to cease to exist." The prefix of the word eclipse, e, comes from a preposition meaning "out," and from a verb meaning "to be absent".
Ron Price 8 June 2012
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
2023 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023