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Is Atlas Holding Hipparchus' Lost Star Map?
cr0kin0le writes "The Farnese Atlas at the Naples National Archaeological Museum may be holding a celestial globe which accurately depicts the long-lost star catalog of Hipparchus, according to a physics professor at Louisiana State University."
Why the hell did you link Wikipedia in the blurb, now I can't karma whore...
In the NYTimes.com picture, they added a leaf... Is this some American thing? /European
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
That's pretty cool. The scientists/naturalists/etc. of the past may have had a more primitive understanding of the universe, but they weren't stupid. It's amazing to think that they figured out so much about the sky so long ago with so few tools, when today most people don't have a working knowledge that even comes close to matching it.
From the FA: picture without leaf
DROS - Open-Source Robot Software
> Hmm.. Anyone else notice that the statue has a fig leaf over the groin in one photograph, but not the other? Did it fall off recently, or what?
No, it's just the pre-Ashcroft and post-Ashcroft versions.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A sculpture probably isn't going to show enough detail, but old charts are interesting as they can show stars as being brighter or dimmer than they are today. For example, in the mid 19th century Eta Carinae was the second brightest star in the sky (after Sirius), now it's almost invisible to the naked eye (around 5th magnitude IIRC). The bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini were around the same magnitude, now Castor is dimmer (the brighter Pollux is still 'beta Geminorum'). I wonder what Hipparchos might have seen that we dont see now?
In the NYTimes.com picture, they added a leaf... Is this some American thing?
Of course The American Version Is The Correct Version. Don't trust Our Media?
The danish version is just a filthy porn version from this well-known immoral little country.
I don't need a signature.
Reading this story, the most amazing thing to me was to think of the Chaldeans of Babylon laboriously making observations over at least half a millenium, before Hipparchus came along. Beats the story of Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton.
So there's a star map in Naples?
Now all I need to do is find all the other Star Maps to locate the Star Forge and defeat Darth Malak.....
May the force be with me....
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
For those of you who don't catch the reference, this is the story: (or, rather, the debunking of the story)
"The Breast was pretty quiet during the eight years of Janet Reno. As one peeved administration official puts it, "No cameraman was ever at Reno's feet, trying to get a shot of her with that thing." But Minnie Lou's outstanding feature stormed back with Ashcroft. When President Bush visited the Justice Department to rededicate the building to Robert Kennedy, his advance men insisted on a nice blue backdrop: "TV blue," infinitely preferable to the usual dingy background of the Great Hall. Everyone thought the backdrop worked nicely -- made for "good visuals," as they say. This was Deaverism, pure and simple. Ashcroft's people intended to keep using it.
An advance woman on his team had the bright idea of buying the backdrop: It would be cheaper than renting it repeatedly. So she did -- without Ashcroft's knowledge, without his permission, without his caring, everyone in the department insists.
But ABC put out the story that Ashcroft, the old prude, had wanted the Breast covered up, so much did it offend his churchly sensibilities. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, ever clever, wrote that Ashcroft had forced a "blue burka" on Minnie Lou. Comedians had a field day (and are still having it). The Washington Post has devoted great space to the story, letting Cher, for example, tee off on it -- as she went on to do on David Letterman's show.
And yet the story is complete and total bunk. First, Ashcroft had nothing to do with the purchase of the backdrop. Second, the backdrop had nothing to do with Breast aversion. But the story was just "too good to check," as we say, and it will probably live forever. Generations from now, if we're reading about John Ashcroft, we will read that he was the boob who draped the Boob. The story is ineffaceable."
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
It's a real leaf, that was placed on it in the Victorian era by Papal decree, and was recently removed as part of a restoration project, but most news outlets frankly don't want to spend $20 for an updated photo when their old stock still works.
I believe the original Greek name was "Grunting Under The Burden of Astronomy."
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Look at the little peepee on atlas!!! LOL!!!
Please, the polite way of putting it is "He's a grower, not a shower".
Another possible retort is: "Yeah, but did you see what a great great ass he has? Divine!". Note that this can lead to awkward silences in predominantly male enviroments such as Slashdot though.
Right guys? Guys...?
*crickets*
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
No matter on how the leaf got there, it's more than likely that the leaf originally was not there. First, the ancient Greek had a different attitude to nakedness (e.g. the Olympic games were done naked), and second, the leaf is derived from the paradise story, and since the ancient Greek were not Jewish, it's highly unlikely that they would have used a leaf even if they for some reason had desired to hide that place.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
An article about one of the greatest scientists of antiquity, yet most comments here seem to be about Atlas' schlong.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
so does it tell you where Salvatore di Giacomo, Lorenzo Bernini, Gaetano Filangieri, and Enrico De Nicola used to live?
don't even know where Europe lies.
They probably think its a town in western Penssylvania or something.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Guess that explains the Simpsons. What about the other 290 million?
Ok, Homer turns to drink once in a while, but in which episode(s) did Bart rob a bank, Lisa become a pregnant crack addict and Marge become a whore?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Maybe I'm being overly suspicious, but you look to me like a European karma whore. What true American would call Denmark "well-known"?
This map also reminds us that astrology is complete bullshit since due to equinox precession ("wobbling" in the article) zodiac signs have changed once since the Romans and twice since the Egyptians devised occidental astrology. Makes the system of prediction wrong in principle...
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Urm, whilst it may be illegal to do those things in _some_ contries in Europe, (in the first case Germany and the second France (i think)), but that does not mean that its illegal to do so all over Europe.
...
In the first case it may e considered in bad taste everywhere though
t
Astronomy is not the Flinstones version of TV, it was developed by many cultures as a way to measure time. The invention of Agriculture depended on ancient astronomy and before that hunter-gathers used it to find seasonal fruits and game. Astronomy's importance to the ancients is built into thier monuments, art, religion and buildings. This has now grown into modern science that gives many people today the technology to be ignorant about thier surroundings and still survive.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
He calculated, within six and a half minutes, the length of a year That's some pretty fast calculating...
The Farnese Atlas is an interesting example of [1] lost knowledge being rediscovered, [2] ancient wisdom forgotten during the Dark Ages, and what do we get?
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
Among his other acts were the declaration (after a vote, no less) that the Pope was infallible (which, because he, the Pope, was infallible, must be right - right?) and the abduction of a jewish couple's child after the child had been secretly baptised by a servant, on the grounds that a 'christian' child must be brought up by christians. Nutter.
Incidentally, it has been suggested that his empire-building paved the way for the powerful modern vatican, and was a direct response to the formation of the modern state of Italy, which had removed a lot of the power of the church. So possibly not such a nutter. Nah, only kidding: Nutter!
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Ancient beliefs combined stars, religion, navigation and folk heroes into a single "art" of "myth". One fascinating, though really long, essay regarding their involution, is called Hamlet's Mill. I wonder how this map could be decoded to learn more about who the Neapolitans, and their cartographic predecessor, Hipparchus, had "commerce" with.
--
make install -not war
The linked photo is from the Naples Archeological Museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli). The NYTimes photo is from the Griffith Observatory in LA. Hence they're not necessarily the same piece of stone, and the latter may be a copy of the original in Naples. On another porn-related note, the Naples Museum is well known across the world for its beloved "Secret Room," full of sexually explicit artifacts dug up from Pompeii and other Roman sites. That, along with the awesome mosaics, are well worth the trip to Naples. Naples has a bad rap for a being unsafe (and parts of it are) but anyone going to Italy should surely go.
From TFA: "The cast of Michelangelo's David, taken from the original marble figure now in the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, was an early and unexpected acquisition for the fledgling Museum at South Kensington."
The Victorians were notoriously prudish, making even current America look downright debaucherous..."A letter sent to the Museum in 1903 by a Mr Dobson complained about the statuary displayed: 'One can hardly designate these figures as "art"; if it is, it is a very objectionable form of art.'" Course, some philistine woman in Florida had this to say about David: "'I didn't even know it was art,' said Jeanne Johnson, owner of a nearby barber shop, who complained about the 5ft concrete statue. 'To me, it's just a naked man standing on the side of the road. Once the girls saw it, I found myself in a position where I had to explain what a penis is.'" Talk about a sex-o-phobe...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I mean, why were these guys so obsessed with sculpting wieners?
They hadn't invented dick jokes yet? But seriously, when you're depicting the human body, why not make it anatomically correct? The hands are sculpted realistically, so why not the rest of the body. Don't forget that in the classical world, before thousends of years of christian puritanism, nudity was no big deal. Why were they obsessed with long hair? Why were they obsessed with feet?
In this case I'm afraid you're the one obsessed with "wieners", they tend to (excuse the phrase) jump out at us, simply because we don't often see them depicted in everyday life.
Browsing at +1, the topic contains 181 comments in 3 threads. The majority (like, 175 comments) are in "What's up with the modified statue", discussing a frigging fig leaf. /., what else did you expect")
# of comments saying "Cool that we found this ancient star map", or otherwise even remotely related to astronomy: zero.
(yeah, I know, "this is
So I'll say it: Cool that we found this ancient star map. Pity we don't have Hipparchus' complete works, though.
The rule is that I grew up in a land where nude bathing was considered the norm and wearing clothes was for the tourists. So I remember being at the beach at age 12 with lots of other people around, completely naked, independent of age and gender. Yes, there were complete families there, from little child up to the grand parents sitting together naked and going for a swim.
;)
The most arousing moment for me was when I noticed that a girl didn't take off her pants. I was for at least 20mins wondering how she might have looked underneath. It never occured to me that I should have been aroused by people being naked.
Then there was a lake not far away from my parents home. When I went there the first time, it was uses half of the beach by nude swimmers, the other half by people prefering textiles around them. A year later it was a nude beach only. And this without any regularies around. It just happened.
And then I was partaking at a triathlon competition. The swimming part took place at another lake not far from my parents home. There were ropes around the changing zone and the place at the beach where the athletes entered the lake and left it after the swimming distance. The places behind the ropes were crowded by nude spectators watching intensely the neoprene-clad people fighting for a good starting position at the competition.
Lets put it like this: In it's true sence of word, all about nudity depends on how you look at it
C'mon -- the guy's got the south pole on his back. That's bound to cause some shrinkage.
Agreed. Truly dark sky sites are very hard to come by these days. The real problem, IMHO, is that, because they're so hard to come by, very few people no what a truly dark sky looks like! Thus, like the grandparent, they think a field an hour from a major metropolitan area constitutes a dark sky site.
The secondary effect of this is that astronomers have a hell of a time convincing people that light pollution is a problem, because a) they don't understand *why* it's a problem, and b) they don't understand the sheer magnitude of the issue. The only bright side (no pun intended) is that the astronomers have economic forces in their corner (you can save money if you stop radiating half of your artificial light out into space).
It has been suggested that Newton here was taking a subtle jab at his rival Hooke, who was of short stature (5'0") and self-conscious of it.
"Mr. Rearden," said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, "if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"I... don't know. What... could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."
Circumcision is child abuse.
The basis of Christian (Catholic and Protestant) ethics concerning sexual behaviour is the concept of "defrauding". In this context, to defraud someone is to arouse desires that cannot be righteously (or practically, for you libertines) fulfilled. Pornography is the ultimate in sexual defrauding, hence it condemned. Solomon puts it more positively, "I adjour you, awake not my love till it pleases." In other words, don't arouse me until the time is right and we can enjoy it to the utmost. (We don't need to be reminded of how Solomon did not exactly set a good example of sexual restraint. He regretted it afterward.)
However, the precise stimuli which result in inappropriate arousal is very culturally relative. A Christian family I know was visited by a Christian family from Russia. They met them at the airport, and the American wife gave all of their visitors a big hug. Later, they discovered that this made the Russians very uncomfortable. (This may reflect a particular subculture in Russia, and not Russians in general.)
My sister spent some years in the jungle in Papua New Gunea. The Christian women there were very few clothes, often going topless due to the climate. This did not seem to provoke the wrong response in the men. (Although I've heard that it does for American boys reading National Geographic.) Strangely, the Papua women were shocked by magazine photos of American women in bikinis. Objectively, the bikinis represented more cloth than what the Papua women wore, but there was something about the facial expression and body language that said "come hither", and thus became pornography.
One more thing, Eros is exclusive and jealous by nature. Promiscuous behaviour does not contradict this. When that special someone says to us, "I love you!", we are thrilled. When we discover that they are saying the same thing to 10 other people, we are not so thrilled. Some people have expressed the idea that pornography might be appropriate within marriage (or whatever you libertines want to use as a substitute). However, because an image rather than the beloved becomes the source of arousal, it diminishes Eros and cheats both partners.
That to me seems like a current "loop hole" trend. Once you get a lot of people going a certain way, everyone else kind of gets quiet.
Personally, I'd like to post the principles of "Beezlebub" at all the court houses that have the ten commandments--just to make things fair. It seems that the evangelists are using the "not freedom from religion" as their mantra these days. That seems really reasonable until it's some religion they don't agree with.
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