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Orrery
An orrery is a mechanical Solar System model, model of the Solar System that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and natural satellite, moons, usually according to the heliocentric model. It may also represent the relative sizes of these bodies; however, since accurate scaling is often not practical due to the actual large ratio differences, it may use a scaled-down approximation. Ancient Greek astronomy, The Greeks had working planetarium, planetaria, but the first modern example was produced by John Rowley. He named it "orrery" for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (in County Cork, Ireland). The plaque on it reads "Orrery invented by Graham 1700 improved by Rowley and presented by him to John [sic] Earl of Orrery after whom it was named at the suggestion of Richard Steele." Orreries are typically driven by a clockwork mechanism with a globe representing the Sun at the centre, and with a planet at the end of each of a series of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orrery Small
An orrery is a mechanical model of the Solar System that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons, usually according to the heliocentric model. It may also represent the relative sizes of these bodies; however, since accurate scaling is often not practical due to the actual large ratio differences, it may use a scaled-down approximation. The Greeks had working planetaria, but the first modern example was produced by John Rowley. He named it "orrery" for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (in County Cork, Ireland). The plaque on it reads "Orrery invented by Graham 1700 improved by Rowley and presented by him to John icEarl of Orrery after whom it was named at the suggestion of Richard Steele." Orreries are typically driven by a clockwork mechanism with a globe representing the Sun at the centre, and with a planet at the end of each of a series of arms. History Ancient The Antikythera mechanism, discovered in 1901 in a wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Boyle, 4th Earl Of Orrery
Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery KT PC FRS (28 July 1674 – 28 August 1731) was an English nobleman, statesman and patron of the sciences. Early life The second son of Roger Boyle, 2nd Earl of Orrery, and his wife Lady Mary Sackville (1647–1710), daughter of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset, he was born at Little Chelsea, London. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and soon distinguished himself by his learning and abilities. Career Like the first earl, he was an author, soldier and statesman. He translated Plutarch's life of Lysander, and published an edition of the epistles of Phalaris, which engaged him in the famous controversy with Bentley. He was a member of the Irish Parliament and sat for Charleville between 1695 and 1699. He was three times member for the town of Huntingdon; and on the death of his brother, Lionel, 3rd earl, in 1703, he succeeded to the title. In 1706, he married Lady Elizabeth Cecil, daughter of John Cecil, 5th Earl of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomical Clock (Venus-Mercury Side), Eberhard Baldewein Et Al, Marburg-Kassel, 1563-1568 - Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, Dresden - DSC08057
An astronomical clock, horologium, or orloj is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets. Definition The term is loosely used to refer to any clock that shows, in addition to the time of day, astronomical information. This could include the location of the Sun and Moon in the sky, the age and Lunar phases, the position of the Sun on the ecliptic and the current zodiac sign, the sidereal time, and other astronomical data such as the Moon's nodes for indicating eclipses), or a rotating star map. The term should not be confused with an ''astronomical regulator'', a high precision but otherwise ordinary pendulum clock used in observatories. Astronomical clocks usually represent the Solar System using the geocentric model. The center of the dial is often marked with a disc or sphere representing the Earth, located at the center of the Solar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planetarium
A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is the large dome-shaped projection screen onto which scenes of stars, planets, and other celestial objects can be made to appear and move realistically to simulate their motion. The projection can be created in various ways, such as a star ball, slide projector, video, fulldome projector systems, and lasers. Typical systems can be set to simulate the sky at any point in time, past or present, and often to depict the night sky as it would appear from any point of latitude on Earth. Planetaria range in size from the 37 meter dome in St. Petersburg, Russia (called "Planetarium No 1") to three-meter inflatable portable domes where attendees sit on the floor. The largest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere is the Jennifer Chalsty Planetariu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Posidonius
Posidonius (; , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greeks, Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher native to Apamea (Syria), Apamea, Syria. He was considered the most learned man of his time and, possibly, of the entire Stoicism, Stoic school. After a period learning Stoicism, Stoic philosophy from Panaetius in Athens, he spent many years in travel and scientific researches in Spain, Africa, Italy, Gaul, Liguria, Sicily and on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. He settled as a teacher at Rhodes where his fame attracted numerous scholars. Next to Panaetius he did most, by writings and personal lectures, to spread Stoicism to the Roman world, and he became well known to many leading men, including Pompey and Cicero. His works are now lost, but they proved a mine of information to later writers. The titles and subjects of more than twenty of them are known. In common w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antikythera Mechanism
The Antikythera mechanism ( , ) is an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery (model of the Solar System). It is the oldest known example of an Analog computer, analogue computer. It could be used to predict astronomy, astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games. The artefact was among wreckage retrieved from Antikythera wreck, a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera in 1901. In 1902, during a visit to the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, National Archaeological Museum in Athens, it was noticed by Greek politician Spyridon Stais as containing a gear, prompting the first study of the fragment by his cousin, Valerios Stais, the museum director. The device, housed in the remains of a wooden-framed case of (uncertain) overall size , was found as one lump, later separated into three main fragments which ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 times more massive. Even though Saturn is almost as big as Jupiter, Saturn has less than a third its mass. Saturn orbits the Sun at a distance of , with an orbital period of 29.45 years. Saturn's interior is thought to be composed of a rocky core, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and an outer layer of gas. Saturn has a pale yellow hue, due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current in the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth because of Saturn's greater size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is about a twen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar System Model
Solar System models, especially mechanical models, called '' orreries'', that illustrate the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System have been built for centuries. While they often showed relative sizes, these models were usually not built to scale. The enormous ratio of interplanetary distances to planetary diameters makes constructing a scale model of the Solar System a challenging task. As one example of the difficulty, the distance between the Earth and the Sun is almost 12,000 times the diameter of the Earth. If the smaller planets are to be easily visible to the naked eye, large outdoor spaces are generally necessary, as is some means for highlighting objects that might otherwise not be noticed from a distance. The Boston Museum of Science had placed bronze models of the planets in major public buildings, all on similar stands with interpretive labels. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal snow), but no liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. It is half as wide as Earth or twice the Moon, with a diameter of , and has a surface area the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker and denser than Earth and any other rocky body in the Solar System. Its atmosphere is composed of mostly carbon dioxide (), with a global sulfuric acid cloud cover and no liquid water. At the mean surface level the atmosphere reaches a temperature of and a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. Venus is the third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Moon and the Sun, and, like Mercury, appears always relatively close to the Sun, either as a "morning star" or an "evening star", resulting from orbiting closer ( inferior) to the Sun than Earth. The orbits of Venus and Earth make the two planets approach each other in synodic periods of 1.6 years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clockwork
Clockwork refers to the inner workings of either mechanical devices called clocks and watches (where it is also called the movement (clockwork), movement) or other mechanisms that work similarly, using a series of gears driven by a spring or weight. A clockwork mechanism is often powered by a clockwork motor, description of the clockwork motor in an antique phonograph consisting of a mainspring, a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon. Energy is stored in the mainspring manually by ''winding it up'', turning a key attached to a ratchet (device), ratchet which twists the mainspring tighter. Then the force of the mainspring turns the clockwork gears, until the stored energy is used up. The adjectives ''wind-up'' and ''spring-powered'' refer to mainspring-powered clockwork devices, which include clocks and watches, kitchen timers, music boxes, and wind-up toys. History The earliest known example of a clockwork set-up is the Antikythera mechanism. This device functioned as a gear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thales
Thales of Miletus ( ; ; ) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Philosophy, philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages, founding figures of Ancient Greece. Beginning in eighteenth-century historiography, many came to regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek philosophy, Greek tradition, breaking from the prior use of mythology to explain the world and instead using natural philosophy. He is thus otherwise referred to as the first to have engaged in mathematics, History of science#Pre-socratics, science, and deductive reasoning. Thales's view that all of nature is based on the existence of a Arche, single ultimate substance, which he Theory, theorized to be Water (classical element), water, was widely influential among the philosophers of his time. Thales thought the Earth floated on water. In mathematics, Thales is the namesake of Thales's theorem, and the interc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
