Episode 47: Clock Around The Rock The Song Of Urania podcast

#Science #Astronomy #History #Joe Antognini

1:00:36

Do you have fond childhood memories of summer camp? For a chance at $250,000, campers must compete in a series of summer camp-themed challenges to prove that they are unbeatable, unhateable, and unbreakable. Host Chris Burns is joined by the multi-talented comedian Dana Moon to recap the first five episodes of season one of Battle Camp . Plus, Quori-Tyler (aka QT) joins the podcast to dish on the camp gossip, team dynamics, and the Watson to her Sherlock Holmes. Leave us a voice message at www.speakpipe.com/WeHaveTheReceipts Text us at (929) 487-3621 DM Chris @FatCarrieBradshaw on Instagram Follow We Have The Receipts wherever you listen, so you never miss an episode. Listen to more from Netflix Podcasts.…

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Episode 47: Clock Around the Rock

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We turn to the astronomy of Mesoamerica, with a particular focus on the Maya and Aztec. The central feature of their astronomy was a pair of interlocking calendars which regulated all aspects of life. The surviving Maya manuscripts also deal extensively with the motion of Venus, which may also have driven decisions to go to war. We also look at the famous Aztec Sun Stone, the 2012 phenomenon, and the fall of the Itzá Kingdom. NOTE: The Song of Urania will be going on hiatus and will return on the first full moon of 2026.

47 епізодів

Episode 47: Clock Around the Rock

The Song of Urania

published рік тому

Поширити

MP3•Головна епізоду

47 епізодів

#Science #Astronomy #History #Joe Antognini

Усі епізоди

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Episode 47: Clock Around the Rock 1:50:06

28 weeks тому1:50:06

1:50:06

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Episode 46: The Stars from Starboard 1:02:48

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The most important application of astronomy in Polynesian societies was oceanic navigation. Polynesian navigators regularly traversed from one small island to another across hundreds of miles of open sea. To accomplish these feats of seafaring, they relied on an intimate knowledge of the night sky.

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Episode 45: Looking Up Down Under 1:04:26

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Aboriginal Australian societies are believed to be among the oldest continuous cultures on the planet. Some of their oral traditions appear to preserve a cultural memory of celestial events from multiple millennia in the past. Aboriginal Australians were also keen observers of the heavens and recognized phenomena both common and rare, from the solstices, to solar eclipses, to auroral sounds, and stellar variability.…

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Episode 44: Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam Per Astra 1:01:35

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In his second attempt, Matteo Ricci was able to gain access to the Forbidden City. Over the next century, the Jesuits came to surprising influence in China through their knowledge of European astronomy, though this journey was not without its perils.

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Episode 43: When the Saint Comes Marching In 49:24

47 weeks тому49:24

49:24

After the fall of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty drove the few small Nestorian Christian communities in China underground and largely closed China off to foreigners. Only in the 16th century with the arrival of Portuguese traders did contacts with the West begin to be revived. The newly founded Jesuit order organized a mission to China led by Matteo Ricci. After finding his efforts at establishing a presence in the country stymied by the government, Ricci discovered that the key to securing a permanent Jesuit presence in China was his knowledge of Western astronomy.…

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Episode 42: A Tale of Two Reforms 56:22

51 weeks тому56:22

56:22

After Wang Mang had usurped the Imperial throne, a disastrous series of reforms led to the collapse of his dynasty. The reestablishment of the Han Dynasty called for yet another calendar reform. About a millennium later, a group of officials, including the astronomer Shen Kuo, instigated a treacherous period in court politics by pressing for a radical set of reforms called the New Policies.…

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Episode 41: Liu Xin's Theory of Everything 47:23

1 year тому47:23

47:23

After Wang Mang deposed the Han Dynasty and instituted his new Xin Dynasty, he needed to promulgate a new calendar to mark the occasion. One of his court astronomers, Liu Xin, developed a new calendar that integrated the lunar and solar cycles with the planetary cycles and imbued it with numerological significance. We then talk about how Huan Tan, another astronomer of the era, would have gone about measuring the lunar mansions.…

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Episode 40: Emperor Wu's Woo 55:10

1 year тому55:10

55:10

We learn about the political events and omens that led to the calendar reform of 104 BC.

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Episode 39: The Guest Stars 50:33

1 year тому50:33

50:33

We turn to the ways that the Chinese Emperor's astronomers predicted and interpreted eclipses, as well as the so-called "guest stars" that they occasionally reported observing in the skies. Then we discuss the role of the planets, particularly Jupiter. Towards the end we hear a few examples of astronomy in Chinese folklore.…

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Episode 38: The Organization of Heaven & Earth 43:46

1 year тому43:46

43:46

This month we turn to the astronomy of China in the early Imperial Era. We look at the way that the Emperor's astronomers were organized within the imperial bureaucracy and then walk through the three significant cosmological theories of the era.

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Episode 37: The Mandate of Heaven 53:38

1 year тому53:38

53:38

We start to explore the relationship between the heavens and the Earth in Ancient China, along with the role of astronomers. One of the most important concepts in Chinese political thought to emerge from this was the Mandate of Heaven. Finally, we look at the oldest record of Chinese astronomy, the story of the astronomers Xi and Ho.…

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Episode 36: Aryabhata & the Siddhantas 48:59

1 year тому48:59

48:59

In our final episode on ancient Indian astronomy, we tour the five astronomical Siddhantas, and then meet some of the astronomers whose names and works survive to us, most importantly, the great Aryabhata.

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Episode 35: The Vedanga Jyotisha & Beyond 31:44

2 years тому31:44

31:44

We delve into the contents of the Vedanga Jyotisha, the earliest Indian text to deal explicitly with astronomy. Then we turn to early Hindu cosmology and their explanations for various celestial phenomena, from the phases of the Moon to solar eclipses. Lastly, we briefly cover the unique cosmology of the Jains.…

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Episode 34: What Happened in Harappa 37:59

2 years тому37:59

37:59

India developed one of the most advanced astronomies of any of the ancient cultures, even rivaling European astronomy in its accuracy by the 18th century. We look at how the geography of India influenced its history and then turn briefly to the little we know about the astronomy of the Harappan Civilization. Finally we end with the astronomy of the Rigveda.…

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Episode 33: How the Moon Became Blue 34:50

2 years тому34:50

34:50

We take a break from the main narrative in honor of this month's blue moon and turn to a somewhat more frivolous topic — how the term "blue moon" came to mean the second full moon in a calendar month.

The Song of Urania

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Episode 32: All Along the Watchers of the Hour 57:12

2 years тому57:12

57:12

This month we tour the astronomers of ancient Egypt from the Old Kingdom to the last native Pharaoh of Egypt just prior to Alexander's conquest. We look at how astronomers fulfilled their primary responsibility of keeping track of time during the night so that the priests could perform the appropriate rituals in the temple. Finally, we end our journey through Egypt with their calendar, arguably the most reasonable calendar any civilization has ever used.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 31: We Need to Talk About Khufu 34:12

2 years тому34:12

34:12

Before getting back into Egyptian astronomy proper, we start by looking at Nabta Playa, a site of megalithic activity in the Nubian desert during the late neolithic. Then we turn to the megaliths the Egyptians are best known for — the pyramids. The pyramids have remarkably precise alignments to the cardinal directions and the techniques the Egyptians used to set these alignments remains a mystery. Finally, we look at the largest of the pyramids, Khufu's pyramid, whose so-called ventilation shafts have a possible astronomical connection.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 30: Egypt in a Nut-Shell 48:22

2 years тому48:22

48:22

We turn to ancient Egypt, one of the oldest and most beguiling of the ancient civilizations. Egypt is particularly notable for the sheer conservatism of its civilization and changed little in more than two millennia. After a brief overview of its geography, history, and textual sources, we look at Egyptian conceptions of the creation, structure, and end of the universe.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 29: The Astronomy of Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa 51:00

2 years тому51:00

51:00

The oldest plausible astronomical artifacts known are African, as are many of the oldest megaliths, around 10,000 of which dot the Sahara and whose orientations are astronomical in character. We then briefly survey some of the creation stories and sky myths from a number of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, we turn to a few of the more unique calendars in the region.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 28: The Stars in Stone 53:30

2 years тому53:30

53:30

We turn the clock back to the astronomy of the Paleolithic and Neolithic. Clues about humanity's interest in the heavens during the Paleolithic can be seen in linguistic, mythological, and archaeological evidence. In the Neolithic, groups of people constructed tens of thousands of megaliths across Europe, many of which had astronomical connections.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 27: Astronomica 55:38

2 years тому55:38

55:38

In this episode we examine the work of two Roman astrologers to see how Roman astrology worked in practice: Marcus Manilius, who wrote Astronomica, and Firmicus Maternus, who wrote the Matheseos.

The Song of Urania

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Episode 26: Matters of Life & Death in Roman Astrology 1:15:11

2 years тому1:15:11

1:15:11

As Rome expanded to the East, the cultural influence of the Greeks deepened, and this included a strong interest in astrology. Despite resistance from conservative Romans, by the Imperial Era, astrology played a critical role in Roman politics, both as a tool to support conspirators attempting to assassinate emperors, and wielded by emperors as a way to eliminate challenges to their power.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 25: The Stars of Bethlehem 1:08:02

2 years тому1:08:02

1:08:02

This month the full moon falls on Three Kings' Day, traditionally a day that celebrates the adoration of the magi, so we investigate the famous Star of Bethlehem story. Through the centuries there have been dozens of astronomical and astrological theories put forward as to what the Star of Bethlehem was. We look at a few of the more prominent theories and their shortcomings, finishing with what is plausibly the leading candidate, the astrological theory of Michael Molnar, though as we'll see, this explanation, too, is not without its problems.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 24: Etruscan & Roman Astronomy 1:04:16

2 years тому1:04:16

1:04:16

Rome, the great empire of the Mediterranean, is not known for its astronomy. But while it lagged behind other civilizations, it is a mistake to think that they were entirely uninterested in the subject. Astronomical references permeated the Roman calendar and one of Rome's longest lasting contributions to Western civilization, the Julian calendar, was devised by the Roman astronomer Sosigenes.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 23: The Culmination of Ancient Greek Astronomy 1:11:50

3 years тому1:11:50

1:11:50

During the half millennium of the Roman Era in Ancient Greece, only two astronomers made any major advances. At the beginning of the Roman Era, Posidonius measured the size of the Earth and discovered the relationship between the Moon and the tides. But the triumph of Greek astronomy came 300 years later with the intricate planetary model of Ptolemy, which stood unchallenged for some 1400 years.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 22: The Antikythera Mechanism & Friends 56:52

3 years тому56:52

56:52

In the year 1900 a team of sea sponge divers stumbled upon a shipwreck from the late Hellenistic Era. Among the statues, coins, and jewellery, the salvage crew pulled out a small box covered in moss. Initially ignored, the contents of this box proved to be the most sophisticated mechanical device that survives from the ancient world. The Antikythera mechanism computed all the known motions of the heavens and its complexity was described by one scholar as "like finding a jet engine in King Tut's tomb."…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 21: Hipparchus the GOAT 1:09:53

3 years тому1:09:53

1:09:53

After briefly examining the astronomy of Timocharis and Aristyllus, who developed the first known stellar catalog, we turn our attention to Hipparchus, who I claim was the greatest astronomer of ancient times. Hipparchus made major developments in virtually every area of astronomy known to him. His measurement of the lengths of the year and month were of unprecedented accuracy, he measured the distance to the Moon, and he developed a star catalog that was an order of magnitude larger than the earlier catalog of Timocharis and Aristyllus, which he was able to use to discover the precession of the equinoxes.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 20: The Theory of Epicycles & Deferents 47:28

3 years тому47:28

47:28

In the Hellenistic Era the astronomer Apollonius of Perga (maybe) developed the model of epicycles and deferents that was to dominate Western astronomy for more than 1500 years. Around the same time, Eratosthenes, who was the head librarian at the Library of Alexandria, developed a novel technique to measure the circumference of the Earth and arrived at a suspiciously accurate result.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 19: The Forerunners of Copernicus 1:05:52

3 years тому1:05:52

1:05:52

At the dawn of the Hellenistic Age, two Greek astronomers developed radical new cosmologies. Heraclides of Pontica proposed that the Earth rotated on its axis and that Mercury and Venus revolved around the Sun instead of the Earth. Aristarchus of Samos went further and proposed that all the planets, including the Earth, revolved around the Sun. In addition, Aristarchus made the first quantitative measurement of the distances to the Sun and the Moon, along with their sizes.…

The Song of Urania

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Episode 18: Aristotle, Plato's Other Student 1:17:58

3 years тому1:17:58