Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
For what, after all, does it matter that Hipparchus should go on to measure the precise length of the year and the apparent size of the moon's disk; that he should make a chart of the heavens showing the place of 1080 stars; even that he should discover the precession of the equinox; what, after all, is the significance of these details as against the all-essential fact that the greatest scientific authority of his century the one truly heroic scientific figure of his epoch should have lent all the forces of his commanding influence to the old, false theory of cosmology, when the true theory had been propounded and when he, perhaps, was the only man in the world who might have substantiated and vitalized that theory?
In the application of astronomy to geography, he followed Hipparchus principally, and he seems from his residence at Alexandria to have derived much information through the merchants and navigators of that city, as well as from its magnificent and valuable library. There is only a short notice of the division of countries, and it is very seldom that any historical notice is added.
Pratensis conceived that it was similar to the one observed by Hipparchus, and urged Tycho to publish the observations which he had made upon it. This absurd notion was with some difficulty overcome, and through the earnest entreaties and assistance of Pratensis, his work on the new star was published in 1573. This remarkable body presents to us one of the most interesting phenomena in astronomy.
He is in the Ethical Branch the Counterpart of Aristotle in the Physical. Its Effect on the rapid Development of exact Knowledge. Influence of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, on Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Chronology, Geography. Decline of the Greek Age of Reason.
The proof that the sun is describing this waving line, and therefore must be considered as attached to an imaginary wheel, is furnished, as it seemed to Hipparchus, by the observed fact of the sun's varying speed. That is one way of looking at the matter. It is an hypothesis that explains the observed facts after a fashion, and indeed a very remarkable fashion.
Whatever idea may be adopted on this subject, if it is very certain that, independent of those exterior causes, which are competent to totally change its face, as the impulse of a comet may do, this globe contains within itself, a cause adequate to alter it entirely, since, besides the diurnal and sensible motion of the earth, it has one extremely slow, almost imperceptible, by which every thing must eventually be changed in it: this is the motion from whence depends the precession of the equinoctial points, observed by Hipparchus and other mathematicians, now well understood by astronomers; by this motion, the earth must at the end of several thousand years change totally: this motion will at length cause the ocean to occupy that space which at present forms the lands or continents.
In Metaphysics less than nothing. We will first examine, as the more pleasant spectacle of the two, that branch of thought in which some progress was really made, and in which the Ptolemaic schools helped forward the development of men who have become world-famous, and will remain so, I suppose, until the end of time. Four names at once attract us: Euclid, Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus.
It is not by writing the decalogue upon mile-stones that the robber would be terrified, or the adulterer converted. It seems that the apothegmatical Hipparchus did not associate with Anacreon more from sympathy with his genius than inclination to the subjects to which it was devoted. He was addicted to pleasure; nor did he confine its pursuits to the more legitimate objects of sensual affection.
The latitude, indeed, of many places had been fixed before; and the means of doing it were sufficiently simple and obvious: but with respect to some general and safe mode of ascertaining the longitudes, the ancient philosophers before Hipparchus, were ignorant of it. He employed for this purpose the eclipses of the moon.
"Hipparchus, going to marry, consulted Philander upon the occasion; Philander represented his mistress in such strong colours, that the next morning he received a challenge, and before twelve he was run through the body." Spectator. Portugal. Its ancient name was Lusitaenia.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking