Date/Time
Date(s) - 27/03/2013
3:20 pm - 4:20 pm

Title: Babylonian Astronomy: The Birth of Predictive Science

Speaker: Dr. John Steele, Brown University

Institute: Brown University

Location: ABB 102

Description:

Babylonian astronomy during the first millennium BC encompassed both the systematical observation of astronomical phenomena such as eclipses of the sun and moon, the daily position of the moon and planets relative to the stars, and the dates of the first and last visibilities and stationary points of the planets and the development of a range of methods for predicting those same celestial phenomena.
In this talk I will discuss some examples from my research into these Babylonian methods of predicting astronomical phenomena and consider what the development of the predictive astronomy for the first time in Babylon means for the history of science.