Related papers: Babylonian and Indian Astronomy: Early Connections
This paper aims at presenting a brief overview of astronomical exchanges between the Eastern and Western parts of the Islamic world from the 8th to 14th century. These cultural interactions were in fact vaster involving Persian, Indian,…
For many decades scholars converse how to correctly include the Old Babylonian Empire into the absolute timeline of history. A cuneiform text from the series Enuma Anu Enlil (EAE #20) reports on the destruction of Babylon after a lunar and…
The earliest origins of mathematics in the Indian subcontinent is generally dated around 800-500 BCE when the {\em Sulbasutras} are thought to have been written. In this article we suggest that mathematical thinking in South Asia, in…
This study reconstructs the origin of a constant, here called $\Xi$ (Xi), as a primary scaling factor in Old Babylonian mathematics and astronomy. $\Xi$ arises from the practical necessity of precise measurements on the sky or a circle,…
This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own…
In point of fact the Indian tradition in mathematics is long and glorious. It dates back to earliest times, and indeed many of the Indian discoveries from 5000 years ago correspond rather naturally to modern mathematical results.
Astronomy has played a major part in the development of civilisations, not only through conceptual developments, but most importantly through the very practical gains obtained through the observation of Sun, Moon planets and stars. Space…
The origin of the numerals that we inherited from the arabo-Islamic civilization remained one enigma. The hypothesis of the Indian origin remained, with controversies, without serious rival. It was the dominant hypothesis since more of one…
We provide textual evidence on divisibility and primality in the ancient Vedic texts of India. Concern with divisibility becomes clear from the listing of all the fifteen pairs of divisors of the number 720. The total number of pairs of…
This paper presents a simple geometrical fact which could relate to the history of mathematics and astronomy. This fact shows a natural link between the circle and the multiples of 6 and it makes it possible to obtain a simple…
The cyclic model of the universe has an old history in India. It has held the preeminent position regarding the origins of the universe, and it is described in astronomical texts, Puranic encyclopaedias, and philosophical literature. Within…
The last two decades have seen the number of known exoplanets increase from a small handful to nearly 2000 known exoplanets, thousands more planet candidates, and several upcoming missions that are expected to further increase the…
Astrology has long been used to interpret human personality, estimate compatibility, and guide social decision-making. Zodiac-based systems in particular remain culturally influential across much of the world, including in South Asian…
The past fifty years have been an epoch of impressive progress in the field of astronomical technology. Practically all the technical tools, which we use today, have been developed during that time span. While the first half of this period…
On the sighting of the constellations and their stars, they seem to be near each other at first sight but some of thema are actually quite further from the others. Froma the geocentric point view can the Zodiac Costellations be perceived as…
This is a historian's view of how modern astronomy data can be used to discuss the shifting historical worldview of Late Antiquity. In this article an attemp is made to construct an approximate model of how the cycles of astronomical…
The official Iranian calendar is a solar one that in both the length and the first day of its year is based not on convention, but on two natural (i.e. astronomical) factors: a) the moment of coincidence of the centre of the Sun and the…
Astronomical observations were used as a marker for time and the Calendar from ancient times. A more subtle calibration of epochs is thrown up by an observation of the position of the solstices and equinoxes, because these points shift in…
We show that many ancient Indian mythological legends are really allegorical depictions of astronomical and other physical phenomena of which the composers had a good idea. This detail enables us to also use techniques of astronomical…
In the distant past, astronomy was often intertwined with religion into a unified cosmos. As science became a distinct cultural enterprise, astronomy has witnessed a variety of rich interactions with other fields. Mathematical statistics…