Astronomy and History Selected Essays

The collection of papers assembled here on a variety of topics in ancient and medieval astronomy was originally suggested by Noel Swerdlow of the University of Chicago. He was also instrumental in making a selection* which would, in general, be on the same level as my book The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. It may also provide a general background for my more technical History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy and for my edition of Astronomi cal Cuneiform Texts. Several of these republished articles were written because I wanted to put to rest well-entrenched historical myths which could not withstand close scrutiny of the sources. Examples are the supposed astronomical origin of the Egyptian calendar (see [9]), the discovery of precession by the Babylonians [16], and the "simplification" of the Ptolemaic system in Copernicus' De Revolutionibus [40]. In all of my work I have striven to present as accurately as I could what the original sources reveal (which is often very different from the received view). Thus, in [32] discussion of the technical terminology illuminates the meaning of an ancient passage which has been frequently misused to support modern theories about ancient heliocentrism; in [33] an almost isolated instance reveals how Greek world-maps really looked; and in [43] the Alexandrian Easter computus, held in awe by many historians, is shown from Ethiopic sources to be based on very simple procedures.

List of contents

I. General.- [1] The Study of Wretched Subjects (1951).- [2] Some Fundamental Concepts in Ancient Astronomy (1941).- [3] Exact Science in Antiquity (1941).- [4] The History of Ancient Astronomy: Problems and Methods (1946).- [5] Mathematical Methods in Ancient Astronomy (1948).- [6] The Transmission of Planetary Theories in Ancient and Medieval Astronomy (1956).- [7] The Survival of Babylonian Methods in the Exact Sciences of Antiquity and Middle Ages (1963).- [8] Zur Transkription mathematischer und astronomischer Keilschrifttexte (1932).- 2. Egyptian.- [9] Die Bedeutungslosigkeit der "Sothisperiode" für die älteste ägyptische Chronologie (1938).- [10] The Origin of the Egyptian Calendar (1942).- [11] The Egyptian "Decans" (1955).- [12] On the Orientation of Pyramids (1980).- 3. Babylonian.- [13] Über eine Untersuchungsmethode astronomischer Keilschrifttexte (1936).- [14] Studies in Ancient Astronomy. VII. Magnitudes of Lunar Eclipses in Babylonian Mathematical Astronomy (1945).- [15] Studies in Ancient Astronomy. VIII. The Water Clock in Babylonian Astronomy (1947).- [16] The Alleged Babylonian Discovery of the Precession of the Equinoxes (1950).- [17] Problems and Methods in Babylonian Mathematical Astronomy, Henry Norris Russell Lecture, 1967 (1967).- [18] The Origin of "System B" of Babylonian Astronomy (1968).- 4. Greco-Roman.- [19] On Two Astronomical Passages in Plutarch's De animae procreatione in Timaeo (1942).- [20] The Early History of the Astrolabe. Studies in Ancient Astronomy IX (1949).- [21] The Astronomical Origin of the Theory of Conic Sections (1948).- [22] Astronomical Fragments in Galen's On Seven-Month Children (1949).- [23] The Horoscope of Ceionius Rufius Albinus (1953).- [24] On the "Hippopede" of Eudoxus (1953).- [25]Apollonius' Planetary Theory (1955).- [26] Notes on Hipparchus (1956).- [27] Ptolemy's Geography, Book VII, Chapters 6 and 7 (1959).- [28] The Equivalence of Eccentric and Epicyclic Motion According to Apollonius (1959).- [29] Melothesia and Dodecatemoria (1959).- [30] Decem Tulerunt Fastidia Menses (1963).- [31] On Some Aspects of Early Greek Astronomy (1972).- [32] On the Allegedly Heliocentric Theory of Venus by Heraclides Ponticus (1972).- [33] A Greek World Map (1975).- 5. Medieval-Renaissance.- [34] The Astronomy of Maimonides and Its Sources (1949).- [35] Hindu Astronomy at Newminster in 1428 (with O. Schmidt) (1952).- [36] Tamil Astronomy: A Study in the History of Astronomy in India (1952).- [37] Regula Philippi Arrhidaei (1959).- [38] Notes on Kepler (1961 & 1975).- [39] Notes on Ethiopic Astronomy (1964).- [40] On the Planetary Theory of Copernicus (1968).- [41] Astronomical and Calendrical Data in the Très Riches Heures (1974).- [42] Tentyon (1975).- [43] Ethiopic Easter Computus (1979).

Product details

• Authors: O Neugebauer, O. Neugebauer
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.11.2013
• EAN: 9780387908441
• ISBN: 978-0-387-90844-1
• No. of pages: 539
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 235 mm x 32 mm
• Weight: 940 g
• Illustrations: XII, 539 p. 4 illus.
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Physics, astronomy > Astronomy