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Episode 36: Aryabhata & the Siddhantas
In our final episode on ancient Indian astronomy, we tour the five astronomical Siddhantas, and then meet some of the...
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Episode 35: The Vedanga Jyotisha & Beyond
We delve into the contents of the Vedanga Jyotisha, the earliest Indian text to deal explicitly with astronomy. Then ...
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Episode 34: What Happened in Harappa
India developed one of the most advanced astronomies of any of the ancient cultures, even rivaling European astronomy...
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Episode 33: How the Moon Became Blue
We take a break from the main narrative in honor of this month's blue moon and turn to a somewhat more frivolous topi...
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Episode 32: All Along the Watchers of the Hour
This month we tour the astronomers of ancient Egypt from the Old Kingdom to the last native Pharaoh of Egypt just pri...
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Episode 31: We Need to Talk About Khufu
Before getting back into Egyptian astronomy proper, we start by looking at Nabta Playa, a site of megalithic activity...
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Episode 30: Egypt in a Nut-Shell
We turn to ancient Egypt, one of the oldest and most beguiling of the ancient civilizations. Egypt is particularly no...
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Episode 29: The Astronomy of Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa
The oldest plausible astronomical artifacts known are African, as are many of the oldest megaliths, around 10,000 of ...
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Episode 28: The Stars in Stone
We turn the clock back to the astronomy of the Paleolithic and Neolithic. Clues about humanity's interest in the hea...
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Episode 27: Astronomica
In this episode we examine the work of two Roman astrologers to see how Roman astrology worked in practice: Marcus Ma...
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Episode 26: Matters of Life & Death in Roman Astrology
As Rome expanded to the East, the cultural influence of the Greeks deepened, and this included a strong interest in a...
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Episode 25: The Stars of Bethlehem
This month the full moon falls on Three Kings' Day, traditionally a day that celebrates the adoration of the magi, so...
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Episode 24: Etruscan & Roman Astronomy
Rome, the great empire of the Mediterranean, is not known for its astronomy. But while it lagged behind other civiliz...
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Episode 23: The Culmination of Ancient Greek Astronomy
During the half millennium of the Roman Era in Ancient Greece, only two astronomers made any major advances. At the b...
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Episode 22: The Antikythera Mechanism & Friends
In the year 1900 a team of sea sponge divers stumbled upon a shipwreck from the late Hellenistic Era. Among the statu...
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Episode 21: Hipparchus the GOAT
After briefly examining the astronomy of Timocharis and Aristyllus, who developed the first known stellar catalog, we...
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Episode 20: The Theory of Epicycles & Deferents
In the Hellenistic Era the astronomer Apollonius of Perga (maybe) developed the model of epicycles and deferents that...
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Episode 19: The Forerunners of Copernicus
At the dawn of the Hellenistic Age, two Greek astronomers developed radical new cosmologies. Heraclides of Pontica pr...
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Episode 18: Aristotle, Plato's Other Student
Two of Plato's students were notable astronomers. We looked at one of them, Eudoxus, in the last two episodes. In thi...
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Episode 17: The Attic Calendar and its Discontents
We turn back the clock and see how a variety of Greek astronomers over the centuries contributed to the Greek calenda...
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Episode 16: The Homocentric Spheres of Eudoxus
In working on the problem of doubling the cube, Plato's friend Archytas devised an ingenious solution that involved a...
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Episode 15: On Plato's Broad Shoulders
Before leaving the world of the Pre-Socratics, we look briefly at the astronomy of Oenopides, which had a more observ...
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Episode 14: The Atomic Philosophers
Two philosophers, Leucippus and Democritus, attempted to synthesize the monist theories of the earlier natural philos...
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Episode 13: Ex Uno, Plura
As we transition from the Archaic Period of Greece to the Classical Period, two philosophers, Empedocles and Anaxagor...
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Episode 12: The Eleatic School & the Way of Truthiness
After the Median invasion, the Ionian philosopher Xenophanes, a student of the Anaximander, was forced to flee to Ele...
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Episode 11: The So-Called Pythagoreans
We turn to the enigmatic, charismatic philosopher Pythagoras and the following that he inspired. Though Pythagoras is...
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Episode 10: The Ionian School
Miletus became a wealthy Greek city during the Archaic Period and developed a thriving intellectual culture which inc...
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Episode 9: Thales, through a Glass Darkly
Thales was the first of the Greek astronomers and became known as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Over the centurie...
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Episode 8: The Bards Sing of the Skies
We outline the early development of Greek civilization after the Late Bronze Age Collapse and how the unique geograph...
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Episode 7: Greek Tales of Ancient Nights & Days
As we start to examine the astronomy of Ancient Greece we hear of the myth cycles of Theseus and Perseus, episodes fr...
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Episode 6: System of a B
We dive into the most sophisticated model of planetary and lunar motions that the Babylonians developed: System A and...
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Episode 5: A System of Weights & Measures
We look at how the Babylonians represented information in their astronomical tablets by examining their number system...
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Episode 4: The Astronomical Diaries
We step back and look at Babylon's broader political history and see how Babylonian astronomy changes during the rise...
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Episode 3: When the Moon Disappears
We look at how the Babylonians associated the heavens with their gods and how Mesopotamian astrology developed after ...
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Episode 2: The Stars over Babylon
What are the earliest records of constellations? How did the ancient Babylonians keep track of their progress through...
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Episode 1: The Heavens & History
How should we approach the history of astronomy? How have the questions that astronomers have asked changed through ...
