John M. Steele Livres

The book explores the revival of ancient astronomical observations sparked by Edmond Halley's discovery of the moon's secular acceleration in the late 17th century. It presents a comprehensive study of how astronomers like Richard Dunthorne, Tobias Mayer, and Jérôme Lalande utilized these historical observations to quantify the acceleration in the 18th century. Additionally, it examines the broader implications of this research, including its impact on biblical chronology, theories of the heavens, and the determination of geographical longitude, appealing to historians of astronomy and ancient studies.

Focusing on ancient astronomical practices, this work delves into the "rising time schemes" used by the Babylonians to understand the relationship between ecliptic positions and their corresponding rising times. It presents the earliest examples of these schemes from the mid to late first millennium BC, offering new editions and translations of Babylonian texts, some identified for the first time. The book reconstructs the complete rising time scheme, situating it within the broader context of schematic astronomy, thus enhancing our understanding of ancient astronomical knowledge.

The ancient exact sciences are the main subject in this collection of papers, offered in honor of Lis Brack-Bernsen by her colleagues and friends. The topics of the articles are linked by the themes that have been at the center of much of Lis's own work: the Babylonian observational record, and the relationship between observation and theory; the gnomon, sundials, and time measurement; and the relationship between different scientific activities in the ancient world, especially the connections between mathematics and astronomy. Lis Brack-Bernsen has been a key figure in tranforming the study of Babylonian astronomy from an almost exclusive focus on the mathematical astronomy of the late period to embracing a much broader consideration of all aspects of the subject, both early and late, mathematical and observational, astronomical and astrological, and their relationships between one another. The papers demonstrate the wide variety of questions asked and approaches used by historians of ancient science.--publisher's website

26 revised and expanded contributions to a conference that took place at the British Museum, June 2001. The authors examine the many interdependencies of Egyptian and Mesopotamian astronomy and mathematics.