Posted: 29 Jan 2016 04:31 PM PST
Photo
credit: Trustees of the British Museum/Mathieu Ossendrijver; NASA By
Kenneth Chang For people living in the ancient city of Babylon, Marduk
was their patron god, and thus it is not a surprise that Babylonian
astronomers took an interest in tracking the comings and goings of the
planet Jupiter, which they regarded as a celestial manifestation of
Marduk. What is perhaps more surprising is the sophistication with which
they tracked the planet, judging from inscriptions on a small clay
tablet dating to between 350 B.C. and 50 B.C. The tablet, a couple of
inches wide and a couple of inches tall, reveals that the Babylonian
astronomers employed a sort of precalculus in describing Jupiter’s
motion across the night sky relative to the distant background stars.
Until now, credit for this kind of mathematical technique had gone to
Europeans who lived some 15 centuries later. “That is a truly
astonishing find,” said Mathieu Ossendrijver, a professor at Humboldt
University in Berlin, who describes his archaeological astronomy
discovery in an article on Thursday in the journal Science. Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.
Related articles:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment