Astronomy Users Manual
Astronomy Users Manual
Do you ever wonder how ancient philosophers calculated the size of our solar system without the aid of telescopes and sophisticated mathematics? They came up with amazingly clever solutions that should be obvious to anyone including you – if you were to have given it enough thought.
Peterson Corporation only functions as a reseller in unique situations where the product is exceptional and unique. This is such an item.
The actual title of this
publication is Astronomy activity and laboratory manual, and its
originally intended target reader was non-science students in a university
introductory astronomy class. A schoolbook? Give me a break! But hold
on…. It's unique. By use of compelling narrative the reader is
placed in the position of historic astronomer/philosophers and asked, with
guidance, to develop/recreate historical discoveries. The reader may:
Accurately measure the size of the Earth as Eratosthenes did in around 200BC.
Measure the size of Earth’s moon, and the distance to the moon, as the Aristarchus did in the third century BC.
Go on to copy Aristarchus in measuring the size and distance of the Sun.
Measure the distance to Mercury and Venus, as
Copernicus did in the early 1500s. Go on to measure the distance to Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn.
Duplicate Newton’s calculation of Earth’s gravity upon the moon and the Sun’s
gravity upon the Earth.
Duplicate Galileo’s measuring the height of a mountain on the moon.
The manual contains a series of 20 “modestly mathematical” activities. The only materials required are a pencil, a straightedge and a common calculator. The necessary mathematical background – basic elements of high school algebra, geometry and trigonometry are introduced on an as-needed basis for the “math phobic.”
As an amateur astronomer, I find that there is a difference between understanding what I have been told and true understanding – which involves the ability to deduce this knowledge for yourself. You don’t have to be an Isaac Newton to retrace some of his thinking. By repeating essential elements of the work of history’s most noted astronomers you will better appreciate the fruits of modern research that are being presented to us at an ever increasing rate.
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