hipparchus

RP 7: Cool things the Greeks did in astronomy

rallain | December 28, 2009

One of things I like to think about in science is "how do we know that?" It is interesting how one thing builds on another. This is a story of how the Greeks estimated the distance from the Earth to the Sun (an important idea in the development of the model of the solar system). I like this story because it is not too complicated. In fact, one could easily reproduce these measurements themselves. So, here is what I will talk about: Measuring the size of the Earth. Determining the distance from the Earth to the moon and the size of the moon. Calculating the distance (and size) to the Sun…