QuestionableAI t1_j515yu5 wrote
I can certainly understand how... our fore-bearers saw the sky, the movements of the sun, moon, and stars and how animals and plants behaved ... breeding, growing, emerging, and hibernation ... how the timing of celestial events matched the seasonal behavior and used that information. Better yet, someone(s) was back there even thought of making star maps to help them remember over time. Clever apes with tools and then to the moon.
MrWrock t1_j51961x wrote
As a kid I had a glow in the dark picture of Earth on the bunk above me. I used to stare at the clouds on it each night as I went to sleep. I knew each and every twist in turn of the cloud pattern and I'm fairly sure I would notice a small change.
In the times before Reddit, tv, or even books I wouldn't imagine a great deal of time was spent staring at the night sky and that many people could have drawn star charts from memory.
It comes to me as no surprise that all throughout history humanity has had a very good concept of the motion of things in space
CanterburyTerrier t1_j52tm8v wrote
That constancy of the heavens is something I think we take for granted. Before Galileo and his work to improve the telescope, the heavens were seen as immutable: unchanging. It's difficult to imagine how odd it must have been to see changes happen before the telescope. Most of those would have been temporary, such as comets and nova changes to brightness. They would have really seemed like messengers.
MrWrock t1_j52wp41 wrote
Well the planets looked like really bright stars that would wander around the sky so I could imagine the curious would really want to know if they could figure them out or predict their motion
CanterburyTerrier t1_j52xhl1 wrote
Yes! Their walk across the zodiac was definitely intriguing to our ancestors. However, the Planets, as well, seemed to have a discernible pattern that could be tracked. So, they were mostly dependable and unchanging in their motion.
The Planets' stubborn refusal to be where they were supposed to be is one of the great catalysts of the scientific revolution. Because they moved in ellipses, Kepler, I think, was the first to produce math that would table them correctly.
hmountain t1_j543da7 wrote
Kepler was several hundred years later than Shen Kuo of china who described “willow leaf” shaped motion of planets and retrograde motion in the 11th century AD.
soundoftheunheard t1_j54fcfe wrote
I don’t think Shen Kuo’s willow leaf explanation (where traversing the “point” is part of the explanatory power and not mathematically explained) of retrograde motion in a geocentric model is in the same realm as Kepler producing the math showing elliptic orbits in a heliocentric model.
[deleted] t1_j51vfsk wrote
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MoistBrownTowel t1_j53o6zo wrote
I remember when I was watching Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix graham Hancock believe ancient civilizations were experts in astronomy and created megastructures dedicated to keeping track of astronomical events and specific celestial objects.
I don’t know if his theory of an ancient Neolithic civilization that spanned the entire world was true but I do like to believe that humans in the past were far more knowledgeable on ancient astronomy than we thought
lunchbox377 t1_j546sfk wrote
as entertaining as his theories are, never forget that hancock is an anti scientific grifter. no disrespect to you, just trying to warn you that the man's fundamentally wrong in his assumptions and explanations of history. Many ancients were definitely experts in astronomy but that has nothing to do with graham's incorrect and flawed assertions and logic.
MoistBrownTowel t1_j55g58u wrote
I wasn’t trying to admit he was right or anything. I just thought his ideas were entertaining for tv purposes
[deleted] t1_j53b5ua wrote
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