A magnet holding a steel bar - what are magnets? What is magnetism? Magnetism is a force created by electricity, or more specifically by electrons. In any iron atom, there are 26 electrons. [...]
Early modern science: Tycho Brahe (He looks funny because his nose got cut off in a duel and he wore a false one made of brass.) New observatories in Europe [...]
Astrolabe in Hebrew, probably from Spain (1300s AD) In the early Middle Ages, most people in Europe were too poor to have much time for astronomy. But some people were still interested in [...]
Ibn Rushd prayed and studied in this Cordoba mosque Can science and religion work together? Since the time of Socrates - or before - many people have tried to figure out [...]
Islamic astronomers taking observations West Asian astronomy before Islam West Asian astronomers had been world leaders in astronomy for thousands of years before the Islamic conquests in the 600s AD. In the last centuries BC, [...]
Vishnu and Lakshmi (Kashmir, 1000s AD now in Los Angeles) A Hindu god Vishnu was one of the Hindu gods. He was mentioned in the Rig Veda as a god of light and the sun. But people [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
An Islamic astrolabe (832 AD) Who invented the astrolabe? About 140 BC, the Greek astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes invented the science of trigonometry. What's trigonometry? Greek astronomy History of astronomy All our [...]
