Who discovered first that the Moon does not have its own light?
score:44
Anaxagoras (500 BCEβ428 BCE):
Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens. His observations of the celestial bodies and the fall of meteorites led him to form new theories of the universal order. He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the sun, which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnese. He was the first to explain that the moon shines due to reflected light from the sun. He also said that the moon had mountains and believed that it was inhabited. The heavenly bodies, he asserted, were masses of stone torn from the earth and ignited by rapid rotation. He explained that, though both sun and the stars were fiery stones, we do not feel the heat of the stars because of their enormous distance from earth. He thought that the earth is flat and floats supported by 'strong' air under it and disturbances in this air sometimes causes earthquakes.
Cited source: Burnet J. (1892) Early Greek Philosophy A. & C. Black, London
SEP's page on Anaxagoras has this note:
The sun is a mass of fiery metal, and the moon is an earthy lump (with no light of its own).
A University of St. Andrews biography of the man has this to say:
In about 450 BC Anaxagoras was imprisoned for claiming that the Sun was not a god and that the Moon reflected the Sun's light. This seems to have been instigated by opponents of Pericles. Russell in [B Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London, 1961), 79-81.] writes:-
The citizens of Athens ... passed a law permitting impeachment of those who did not practice religion and taught theories about 'the things on high'. Under this law they persecuted Anaxagoras, who was accused of teaching that the sun was a red-hot stone and the moon was earth.
Anaxagoras proposed that the moon shines by reflected light from the "red-hot stone" which was the sun, the first such recorded claim. Showing great genius he was also then able to take the next step and become the first to explain correctly the reason for eclipses of the sun and moon.
His contributions are also discussed in a biographical page in about.com's astronomy portal.
More post
- π Why did India sign the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation?
- π What is the social history of British popular opposition to Thatcher over the minerβs strike?
- π Roman era clothing (Egypt + Carthage)
- π Is there any evidence of improved sanitation in the years following the Black Death?
- π What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
- π Inflation rates in Spain and Portugal during the 16th century
- π Why did the "Ruthenians" break up into "Belarusians" and "Ukrainians?"
- π Aside from the Pyramids, what is the tallest man-made structure still standing in Europe & the Near East from ancient times?
- π Are there non-Biblical references to collecting foreskins?
- π What were the capabilities of a warhorse?
- π Why was the Spanish kingdom in America called New Spain if Spain didn't exist as a country back then?
- π Is this anecdote about Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill true?
- π No prosecution for retaliatory mass murder after Maurice Rose's killing?
- π When did the nobles of Europe revert to being "ordinary" citizens?
- π How much did the culture of Anatolian Gallic settlers differ from their kin in Gaul?
- π What kinds of documents were forged in the middle ages and how common was forgery?
- π What sorts of things would a 16th century explorer document?
- π Why were the kingdom of Prussia's territorial ambitions focused in Saxony?
- π Why did the French "surrender" all of its troops during the armistice in World War II?
- π Were the Tuatha De Danann really from India?
- π Why did Mexico encourage the settlement of Texas by Americans?
- π How did Japan do era names prior to the reign of Meiji?
- π 1901 Boxer Protocol settlement to Norway
- π Has there ever been a case where a country adopted the currency of another country with a smaller economy?
- π Did the Founding Fathers believe that states had the right to secede?
- π What is the approximate value of a Spanish ducat in 1557?
- π What was wrong with carrying a bag on one's back in a town in the USA in the first decades of the 1900?
- π What was the biggest empire that never had capital punishment?
- π How did Germany deal with the East German communist Government structure after unification?
- π Has there ever been a month with 32 days?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- π Who discovered first that the Moon does not have its own light?
- π Does Japan have the constitutional and legal right to have its own army or navy?
- π Does the Catholic church have a long history of child abuse, or is it something that started in our time?
- π When was it discovered that the stars are not all lying on the same plane?
- π Who first combined the lateen and square sails that led to the carrack?
- π Were there weapons that a private citizen could not legally own in 1789 in the US?
- π Are there any historians who believe that the crusades were not motivated as a distraction from internal conflicts?
- π Why does the Navyβs army need its own air force (U.S. Marine Corps)?
- π Why does the Δ¦aΔ‘ar Qim seem to have drilled holes / pitted dots on its stoneworks?
- π Who was the shepherd that discovered the Gobekli Tepe?
- π Who was the first Renaissance cartographer to include rich content in their maps that went beyond spatial points, borders, and location names?
- π What populations have been denied the ability to leave a territory, so that its goverment could kill them?
- π Who was the first to point out that transmutation of gold would be mostly useless, since it would simply lead to inflation?
- π Can we say that the first empire that divided its territory into provinces was the Neo-Assyrian Empire?
- π Why did Mussolini say that people are not really free if they don't have access to the ocean?
- π "Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin."
- π Did the Mexican province of Nuevo Mexico have its own provincial flag?
- π When did Russia last have some land that is not inside its current borders?
- π Have there been any notable people that have claimed that classism and not racism is the current cause of racial inequality?
- π Were there any monarchs of England or the United Kingdom who were not technically first in the line of succession?
- π Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- π Why is the consensus that WW2 started on September 1, 1939 and not July 7, 1937?
- π If the Union Jack joins the flag of England and Scotland, why does it have a different shade of blue than the Scottish flag?
- π Why does German money from the 1940s not bear Nazi symbols?
- π Does any country have an official celebration for the annexation of foreign territory?
- π Where would the first nuke have been dropped in Germany?
- π What was the first solar eclipse that was demonstrably predicted in advance?
- π Who was the last leader of a country to call himself a dictator, or the last regime that called itself a dictatorship?
- π What were the reasons that the British colonies in North America rebelled but not others?
- π Who was the first female ruler to be given the suffix, "the great"?