AST 3043 STUDY GUIDE 2



  1. importance of astronomy in Islamic lands -- calendar, crescent Moon beginning month (hilal), timekeeping for prayer (muwaqqit), direction to Mecca (qibla), astrology (zij)
  2. Baghdad and the House of Wisdom, al-Khwarizmi, translation -- Almagest, approximate date
  3. Thabit Ibn Qrra (Tobit) -- trepidation (based on erroneous data from Ptolemy)
  4. Muhammad al-Battani (Albategnius) -- introduction of sines, spherical trigonometry; improved Ptolemaic model, especially solar orbit
  5. Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi -- used Ptolemy's catalogue with improved magnitudes for star maps -- Book on Constellations of Fixed Stars
  6. Abd al-Rahman Ibn Yunus -- observer, large instruments; Hakemite Tables included observations of eclipses and conjunctions; fairly good value for atmospheric refraction
  7. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) -- critic of Ptolemy, On the Configuration of the World; book on optics
  8. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi -- Maragha Observatory, Tusi couple, revised Ptolemy's model of motion in latitude; eliminated eccentric, equant; Ilkhanic Tables
  9. Ibn al-Shatir -- eliminated equant by introducing extra epicycle; refined Moon's motion
  10. Taqi al-Din -- Istanbul Observatory, contemporaneous with Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg; short existence because of bad luck in astrological predictions
  11. Ulugh Beg -- Samarkand Observatory; star catalogue with newly-measured positions
  12. Ibn al-Zarqala (Arzachel) -- Toledo Tables
  13. Alfonsine Tables -- origin of name; Isaac ben Said and Jehuda ben Moses Cohen; precession and trepidation; significance; approximate date
  14. Medieval criticism of Aristotle's theory of motion -- Buridan, Oresme; impetus, argument of fall
  15. Sacrobosco (John of Holywood) -- medieval texts on astronomy, esp. Tractatus de sphaera (Treatise on the Sphere)
  16. dichotomy both in Islamic thought and in late medieval cosmology -- Aristotle vs. Ptolemy
  17. Georg Peurbach (or Purbach) -- New Theory of the Planets, Epitome of Ptolemy (with Regiomontanus)
  18. Regiomontanus (Johannes Mueller) -- pupil of Peurbach; Epitome (with Peurbach); Ephemerides
  19. Bernhard Walther -- pupil of Regiomontanus; extensive series of fairly accurate observations; rediscovered atmospheric refraction
  20. Copernicus -- background; dissatisfaction with Ptolemaic model; Brief Commentary; On the Revolutions and his model, true place of Sun; roles of Rheticus (Joachim) and Osiander, preface and title change; significance; approximate date
  21. Erasmus Reinhold -- Prutenic Tables
  22. Tycho Brahe -- background; "new star" of 1572 and comet of 1577; observations from Uraniborg and Stjerneborg, innovations in instruments and techniques; treatment of refraction; Tychonic theory
  23. Johannes Kepler -- background; Cosmographic Mystery, New Astronomy; Survey of Copernican Astronomy and Harmony of the World, laws of planetary motion; Rudolphine Tables; approximate date
  24. Galileo Galilei -- background; correspondence with Kepler; Starry Messenger and discoveries with telescope; sunspots; Letter to Grand Duchess Christina and consequences; Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems and consequences; Discourses on Two New Sciences, inertia
  25. Francis Bacon: experimental philosophy, inductive method; New Atlantis, organization of science; practical application of science
  26. Rene Descartes: critical doubt; deductive method and use of reason, Principles of Philosophy, plenum, vortices, theory of comets, infinite universe
  27. scientific societies -- Accademia dei Lincei (Italy), Royal Society (England) and Robert Hooke, Academie des Sciences (France); publications
  28. Christiaan Huygens: "aerial" telescope; Saturn's rings and large satellite; centrifugal/centripetal force; pendulum clock
  29. G. D. Cassini = Cassini I: first director Paris Observatory, 4 medium-sized satellites of Saturn, Cassini Division; (with Picard) geocentric parallax of Mars at opposition and astronomical unit
  30. Hevelius: lunar map; accurate positions without telescope, dispute with Hooke
  31. Roemer: speed of light from eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, right ascension and declination at transit
  32. Newton: background; calculus (ind. Leibniz); optics -- dispersion into colors; Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica: methodology, definitions, laws of motion, universal gravitation, two-body problem, Moon's motion including regression, Earth's oblateness, tides, precession, test of vortex theory; approximate date
  33. Halley: role in publication of Principia; Southern Hemisphere stars; comet orbits
  34. shape of Earth -- oblate vs. prolate, measurements of degree of latitude -- Bouguer and La Condamine, Maupertuis
  35. Clairaut: prediction of return of Halley's Comet (with Mme. Lepaute)
  36. naked-eye instruments -- hand-held quadrant (old and new); cross-staff; nocturnal; camera obscura
  37. telescopes -- Galilean refractor, Kepler (astronomical) refractor, and their respective advantages and disadvantages; reflector (Newton, Cassegrain, Gregorian) and its advantages and disadvantages; transit telescope
  38. chromatic and spherical aberration