A short history of Astronomy Bernie Brenner PostGrad Cert Astronomy (Swinburne) Pelvic Floor Clinic North 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 8 th to 14 th 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 Johannes Kepler 1571 – 1630 Galileo Galilei
Isaac Newton “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 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