A Brief History of Clocks: From Thales to Ptolemy
The clock is one of the most influential discoveries in the history of western science. The division of time into regular, predictable units is fundamental to the operation of society. Even in ancient times, humanity recognized the necessity of an orderly system of chronology. Hesiod, writing in the 8th century BC., used celestial bodies to indicate agricultural cycles: "When the Pleiads, Atlas' daughters, start to rise begin your harvest; plough when they go down" ( Hesiod 71). Later Greek scientists, such as Archimedes, developed complicated models of the heavens-celestial spheres-that illustrated the "wandering" of the sun, the moon, and the planets against the fixed position of the stars. Shortly after Archimedes, Ctesibus created the Clepsydra in the 2nd century BC. A more elaborate version of the common water clock, the Clepsydra was quite popular in ancient Greece. However, the development of stereography by Hipparchos in 150 BC. radically altered physical representations of the heavens. By integrating stereography with the Clepsydra and the celestial sphere, humanity was capable of creating more practical and accurate devices for measuring time-the anaphoric clock and the astrolabe. Although Ptolemy was familiar with both the anaphoric clock and the astrolabe, I believe that the development of the anaphoric clock preceded the development of the astrolabe.
The earliest example, in western culture, of a celestial sphere is attributed to the presocratic philosopher Thales. Unfortunately, little is known about Thales' sphere beyond Cicero's description in the De re publica:
For Gallus told us that the other kind of celestial globe, which was solid and contained no hollow space, was a very early invention, the first one of that kind having been constructed by Thales of Mileus, and later marked by Eudoxus with the constellations and stars which are fixed in the sky. (Price 56)
This description is helpful for understanding the basic form of Thales' sphere, and for pinpointing its creation at a specific point in time. However, it is clearly a simplification of events that occurred several hundred years before Cicero's lifetime. Why would Thales' create a spherical representation of the heavens and neglect to indicate the stars? Of what use is a bowling ball for locating celestial bodies? Considering Eudoxus' preoccupation with systems of concentric spheres, a more logical explanation is that Thales marked his sphere with stars, and Eudoxus later traced the ecliptic and the paths of the planets on the exterior.
Pain has been defined by Coates & Hindle as an unpleasant emotional and sensory experience which signals a potential or actual damage to tissues (2011, p. 213). Pain is a common human experience and can emanate from injury and illness. There are two main types of pain; acute pain is short-lived, lasting for minutes or several days and its onset often takes place rapidly. It results from the activation of pain nerve endings or nociceptors either by internal or external pain stimuli. On the other hand chronic pain is continuous and sometimes recurrent and can last for weeks, months or even years. Chronic pain is usually not located at or related to the tissue undergoing trauma (Draper & Knight, 2007, p. 104). Various theories have been proposed to explain the mechanism underlying the transmission and perception of pain.
Clarke, Leonard W.‘Greek Astronomy and Its Debt to the Babylonians' The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 1, No. (Cambridge University Press. 1962)
Thayer seeks to understand Evolutionary theory as the ultimate cause of realism. In Evolutionary theory, humans like other animals have to evolve to survive and reproduce from natural selection, which develops two basic human traits: egoism and dominance (Thayer, 2000, p.130). In order to survive and for fitness, an organism tends to places its security over the others and according to Evoluti...
In 1543 Nicholas Copernicus, a Polish Canon, published “On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs”. The popular view is that Copernicus discovered that the earth revolves around the sun. The notion is as old as the ancient Greeks however. This work was entrusted by Copernicus to Osiander, a staunch Protestant who though the book would most likely be condemned and, as a result, the book would be condemned. Osiander therefore wrote a preface to the book, in which heliocentrism was presented only as a theory which would account for the movements of the planets more simply than geocentrism did, one that was not meant to be a definitive description of the heavens--something Copernicus did not intend. The preface was unsigned, and everyone took it to be the author’s. That Copernicus believed the helioocentric theory to be a true description of reality went largely unnoticed. In addition to the preface, this was partly because he still made reassuring use of Ptolemy's cycles and epicycles; he also borrowed from Aristotle the notion that the planets must move in circles because that is the only perfect form of motion.
Besides that free trade encourages strengthen the development of a country’s institutions, in order to protect the country’s eco...
Pain is universal and personal to those who are experiencing it. It is subjectively measured on a scale of 0-10 with zero being no pain and 10 being the worst pain ever. This can be problematic for patients and doctors because this score can be understated or overstated. Doctors will make quick decisions based on this score. Patients might feel not believed because only they can feel the pain. However, untreated pain symptoms may be associated with impaired activities of daily life and decreased quality of life. Pain is defined in our textbook, “as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage” (Ignatavicius & Workman, 2016, p 25). Actual pain is understood by most because there is an
Pain, which is defined in its widest sense as an emotion which is the opposite of pleasure (White, 2004, p.455), is one of the major symptoms of cancer, affecting a majority of sufferers at some point during their condition (De Conno & Caraceni, 1996, p.8). The World Health Organization (WHO, 2009, online) suggests that relief from pain may be achieved in more than 90 percent of patients; however, Fitzgibbon and Loeser (2010, p.190) stress that pain may often be undertreated, even in the UK. Foley and Abernathy (2008, p.2759) identify numerous barriers to effective pain management, among which are professional barriers such as inadequate knowledge of pain mechanisms, assessment and management strategies.
In document C, Ptolemy had a theory where the Earth was the center of the Solar System. Other scientists also had this theory when they were examining the stars and Earth's rotation. But other scientists figured out that the Sun was the center of the Solar System instead of Earth. Document D shows the zodiacs and how the stars lining up. These documents show how advance the people in the Renaissance were. Ptolemy and Copernicus were very advanced as well when they had their theories on the Solar System. Also when they would use the stars and constellations for the zodiac symbolizations (Doc
Historians and archeologists have found physical evidence that ancient civilizations had an active interest it the apparent motion of the celestial objects. Stonehenge in England, The Bighorn Medicine Wheel in the Unit...
Aristarchus lived from about the year 310 B.C. to about 230 B.C. Aristarchus was the first Greek philosopher and mathematician to make sense of the solar system. Others before him thought that the Earth is a sphere and that it moves, but he was the first to understand the heliocentric theory, which states that the sun is in the middle. In 288 or 287 B.C. he followed Theophrastus as the head of the Peripatetic School established by Aristotle.
In class we have discussed the concept of pain, concluding that a conflict between what the brain anticipates occurring and what actually occurs has the potential to cause the perception of pain. Furthermore, it was suggested that genetics might have a role in the experience of pain, particularly when applied to the discussion of phantom limb pain. However, I found these inferences a bit unsatisfying and walked away with more questions than answers. Where does chronic pain come into the picture? Why is a stimulus that is painful for one person not for another? And the question that puzzled me the most: how, from a neurobiological perspective, can an individual experience pain in her arm if she was born without one?
This source provided a lot of background information on Euclid and his discoveries. This source gave details about the many geometrical theories of Euclid, as well as his practical geometrical uses. This source also explained how geometry helped Greece a long time ago, and how it is used by many people everyday.
Pain is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage" (1). When pain is described in these terms we can see that pain is a perception, sort of like seeing and hearing. When pain is processed there are a number of brain structures activated, commonly referred to as the "central pain matrix" (2). It may seem irrelevant to delve into pain signal activation in the brain since it is seemi...
the earth in the universe, and life’s of individuals like Galileo to acknowledge the round shape of
The talk about prescription painkillers prescribed by doctors are starting to be widely debated whether they’re doing more good than harm. The debate on whether painkillers are good for the human health has came into a mild and somewhat highly discussed topic within the last decade. At first prescribed painkillers were thought to be good, but these prescribed painkillers have always been like a double edge sword usually doing better than bad. The side effects from the painkillers used to be very minimal; for example the common side effects were drowsiness, nausea and vomiting, but since the world is a constantly developing place new painkillers are constantly being developed and so are their side effects” ("Types of Pain Medications on RxList.com." RxList. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2014.’). Not only are the side effects becoming worst, but people are becoming severely addicted to them and in some cases their addiction is lethal and not only kills them, but it can also tear a family apart or put a family in great financial debt because of one person addiction. Now when something that been created to do good starts to be questioned whether it’s actually still good or not is major problem majority of the time.