Review -- 4
- Great Advances in Science 500 BC -- 200 AD
- Accurate description of the motions of the sun, moon, stars. Essential for calendar.
- Philosophy dominated by Plato and Aristotle
- Plato believed in higher order, ideals
- Aristotle was observational scientist – defined Physics (Natural Philosophy)
- Ideas of Motion: Perfect perpetual motion in heavens; Natural state of rest for objects to earth
- Evidence for spherical earth, moon, sun and measurements of their sizes and distances centuries B.C. ! (Erastosthenes, Aristarchus)
- The only problems: The "planets”
- Complex earth-centered models assuming motion described by circles (Ptolemy, around 150 AD)