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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."
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.
The leaf seems to be real. It's probably the doing of the (very European) Pope Pius the IX in 1857, who thought that naked statues should be covered up. In recent years they have been restored, and the NY Times probably used an old picture - whether or not that was on purpose we don't know.
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.
Actually, this is a European thing. Many old sculptures and statues were modified by the catholic church during past centuries in the name of 'decency'. Fig leaves were typically added, made of alabaster or a similar stone to the original statue, and affixed using concrete. This is also why many statues you will now see in this part of the world lack genitalia, as when the leaves were removed by a more enlightened age of society, the genitals fairly often came with.
The NYTimes photo is most likely an accurate picture, however is probably a lot older than the picture on the other site, and the fig leaf was removed sometime after the photo was taken.
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
so does it tell you where Salvatore di Giacomo, Lorenzo Bernini, Gaetano Filangieri, and Enrico De Nicola used to live?
No, the prudish Americans are a tiny minority - bordering on a myth, really.
...They also have a lot to say about the relative value of light-skinned blonde daughters versus black-skinned kinky-haired daughters....
The media props up this mythical form of being in order to Disney-fy the airwaves and make anyone who lives a normal flawed human lifestyle feel like a depraved piece of shit. This helps to prop up those capitalist endeavors that rely on a cowed populus, such as the snack industry, the advertising industry, and the defense industry.
The underlying aim of the media is to teach ordinary Americans that they are in constant danger of being demonized as outsiders. They are told they can escape this alienation by joining the mass-consciousness. All they need do is practice the dubious virtues of jingoism and an unquestioning submission to authority and they will be accepted, loved, and embraced by the status-quo.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Maybe I'm being overly suspicious, but you look to me like a European karma whore. What true American would call Denmark "well-known"?
I presume you put blindfolds on them when they shower in case they should happen to look down without asking first?
I think the outraged reaction to the Janet Jackson things was funnier. After all, the primary purpose of breasts is to be presented to young children. How is someone who spent much of the most delicate period of their post-birth brain development with a breast the size of their head shoved in their face going to be adversely affected by a glipse of nipple?
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
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.
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.