The Song of Urania Podcast

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    Episodes

  1. 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 ...

  2. 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...

  3. Episode 27: Astronomica

    In this episode we examine the work of two Roman astrologers to see how Roman astrology worked in practice: Marcus Ma...

  4. 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...

  5. 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...

  6. 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...

  7. 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...

  8. 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...

  9. Episode 21: Hipparchus the GOAT

    After briefly examining the astronomy of Timocharis and Aristyllus, who developed the first known stellar catalog, we...

  10. 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...

  11. Episode 19: The Forerunners of Copernicus

    At the dawn of the Hellenistic Age, two Greek astronomers developed radical new cosmologies. Heraclides of Pontica pr...

  12. 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...

  13. 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...

  14. 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...

  15. 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...

  16. Episode 14: The Atomic Philosophers

    Two philosophers, Leucippus and Democritus, attempted to synthesize the monist theories of the earlier natural philos...

  17. Episode 13: Ex Uno, Plura

    As we transition from the Archaic Period of Greece to the Classical Period, two philosophers, Empedocles and Anaxagor...

  18. 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...

  19. Episode 11: The So-Called Pythagoreans

    We turn to the enigmatic, charismatic philosopher Pythagoras and the following that he inspired. Though Pythagoras is...

  20. Episode 10: The Ionian School

    Miletus became a wealthy Greek city during the Archaic Period and developed a thriving intellectual culture which inc...

  21. 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...

  22. 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...

  23. 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...

  24. 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...

  25. Episode 5: A System of Weights & Measures

    We look at how the Babylonians represented information in their astronomical tablets by examining their number system...

  26. 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...

  27. Episode 3: When the Moon Disappears

    We look at how the Babylonians associated the heavens with their gods and how Mesopotamian astrology developed after ...

  28. Episode 2: The Stars over Babylon

    What are the earliest records of constellations? How did the ancient Babylonians keep track of their progress through...

  29. Episode 1: The Heavens & History

    How should we approach the history of astronomy? How have the questions that astronomers have asked changed through ...