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Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Ancient Greek and Roman Astronomy

    Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Early Greek and Roman Cosmology Our concept of the cosmos—its basic structure and origin—is called cosmology, a word with Greek roots. Before the invention of telescopes, humans had to depend on the simple evidence of their senses for a picture of the…

  • Ancient Astronomy Around the World

    Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Let us now look briefly back into history. Much of modern Western civilization is derived in one way or another from the ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans, who got most of their ideas from the ancient Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptians. …

  • The Sky Above

    Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Our senses suggest to us that Earth is the center of the universe—the hub around which the heavens turn. This geocentric (Earth-centered) view was what almost everyone believed until the European Renaissance. After all, it is simple, logical, and seemingly self-evident. Furthermore,…

  • Thinking Ahead

    Much to your surprise, a member of the Flat Earth Society moves in next door. He believes that Earth is flat and all the NASA images of a spherical Earth are either faked or simply show the round (but flat) disk of Earth from above. How could you prove to your new neighbor that Earth…

  • Collaborative Group Activies

    Collaborative Group Activities

  • For Further Exploration

    For Further Exploration Books Miller, Ron, and William Hartmann. The Grand Tour: A Traveler’s Guide to the Solar System. 3rd ed. Workman, 2005. This volume for beginners is a colorfully illustrated voyage among the planets. Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. Ballantine, 2013 [1980]. This tome presents a classic overview of astronomy by an astronomer who had a true gift for…

  • A Conclusion and a Beginning

    If you are new to astronomy, you have probably reached the end of our brief tour in this chapter with mixed emotions. On the one hand, you may be fascinated by some of the new ideas you’ve read about and you may be eager to learn more. On the other hand, you may be feeling…

  • The Universe of the Very Small

    The foregoing discussion has likely impressed on you that the universe is extraordinarily large and extraordinarily empty. On average, it is 10,000 times more empty than our Galaxy. Yet, as we have seen, even the Galaxy is mostly empty space. The air we breathe has about 1019 atoms in each cubic centimeter—and we usually think of…

  • The Universe on the Large Scale

    In a very rough sense, you could think of the solar system as your house or apartment and the Galaxy as your town, made up of many houses and buildings. In the twentieth century, astronomers were able to show that, just as our world is made up of many, many towns, so the universe is…

  • A Tour of the Universe

    We can now take a brief introductory tour of the universe as astronomers understand it today to get acquainted with the types of objects and distances you will encounter throughout the text. We begin at home with Earth, a nearly spherical planet about 13,000 kilometers in diameter (Figure 1.6). A space traveler entering our planetary…

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