Relevant Chapter Web Links

Chapter 1
Motion in a circle concentric with the Earth does not allow the Moon to change sizes. The fact that it DOES change sizes was problematic for Aristotle, Aristarchus, and others. See for yourself! Read about the phases of the Moon and watch the Lunation Movie linked at the bottom of that page.
Chapter 2
Pythagoras and Music of the Spheres
Animation of retrograde motion
Heliocentric model Java demonstration showing retrograde motion of Mars
McGraw Hill index of Quick-Time animations

Thales of Miletus & Pythagoras of Samos

http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Philosophy/Philosophers/Thales_of_Miletus__c_634_c_546_BCE_/

http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/index.html

http://www.crystalinks.com/pythagoras.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoras/

Plato’s homework problem

http://www.astronomynotes.com/history/s3.htm

Chapter 3
Gnosticism
Neo-Platonism
Astrology
Ancient Planetary Model Animations
The animations illustrate the models of planetary motion found in the Almagest, by Claudius Ptolemy, and some of the models formulated by Arabic astronomers that correct some of the (as felt at the time) theoretical shortcomings of the Almagest models.
Models of Planetary Motion from Antiquity to the Renaissance
Statue Hid Hipparchus Star Catalog Physics Today
Manichaeism
Chapter 4
de Revolutionibus scanned in its entirety and on-line
Copernican Model, A Sun-Centered Solar System
Nicholas Copernicus

Chapter 5
The Galileo Project
Galileo museum in Florence, Italy
Tycho Brahe from Rice University
Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer
The instruments of Tycho Brahe
Johannes Kepler's Polyhedra
Kepler Motion Interactive Java Program
Kepler's Laws with Animation
Chapter 6
Newton's Mountain-top Cannon
Sir Isaac Newton and the Laws of Gravity
The Apollo 15 Feather-Hammer Drop "Galileo was correct!"
Isaac Newton's Gravity: How a major new exhibition gets the scientist wrong.
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Early investigations on the finite speed of light
Chapter 9
Chapter 10


back to main page