Eratosthenes of Cyrene went to school here! A classroom at the University of Alexandria (al-Ahram 2004). Who was Eratosthenes of Cyrene? Eratosthenes of Cyrene was born about 276 BC. He was [...]
A copy of Aristarchus of Samos' work on parchment from Constantinople, about 950 AD. It shows the relative sizes of the sun, the Earth, and the moon Aristarchus of Samos [...]
Anaxagoras came from Clazomenae: A map showing Clazomenae Where was Anaxagoras from? Like Thales before him, Anaxagoras was born in what's now Turkey. Anaxagoras was born around 500 BC in a city called Clazomenae, [...]
Ancient Greek science: Greek doctor letting blood out of a patient because he believes in the four humors When did Greek science get started? By about 600 BC, ancient Greek people were getting [...]
The sun at sunset: The sun in Greek astronomy At first the Greeks imagined that the sun was the god Helios, or Apollo, driving his chariot around and around the earth. In the morning he began driving [...]
Parallax and your finger Parallax comes from the Greek word "para", meaning "alternate" and "alla", meaning "change". Greek people used the word parallax to describe how an object seems to move when [...]
Greek astronomy: Eclipse of the sun Astronomy before the Greeks The art of astronomy was already very advanced before the Greeks began to interest themselves in the stars. The Egyptians and especially [...]
Antikythera mechanism: a clockwork machine to calculate how the earth and the sun move around When did Hipparchus live? Hipparchus was a Greek astronomer and mathematician in the 100s BC, in the time [...]
Greek schools: The students stand before the teachers. Did ancient Greek kids go to school? Most Greek children never went to school at all. Girls, to begin with, always stayed [...]
Chinese astronomy: A Chinese star chart possibly dating from the 600s AD, during the T'ang Dynasty The Chinese zodiac Chinese scholars began by thinking of the stars, the sun, and [...]
