Category Archives: Science
Quantum Leaps: Hipparchus
C. 170–125 BC
HIPPARCHUS spent long periods taking measurements of the earth’s position in relation to the stars. The results enabled him to make several important findings and calculations.
. The Precession of The Equinoxes
He discovered what is now known as the “precession of the equinoxes” by comparing his own observations with those noted by Timocharis of Alexandria a century and a half previously together with earlier recordings from Babylonia. What Hipparchus soon realised was that by taking into account any observational errors made by his predecessors, the points at which the equinox (the two occasions during the year when day and night are of equal length) occurred seemed to move slowly but consistently from east to west against the backdrop of the fixed stars. He gave a value for the annual precession of around 46 seconds of the arc, which is exceptionally close to the modern figure of 50.26 seconds, given the tools and data then available to him.
. The Distance of The Moon
From these observations, Hipparchus was able to make much more accurate calculations on the length of the year, producing a figure that was accurate to within six and a half minutes.
He was also able to correctly determine the lengths of the seasons and offer more exact predictions of when eclipses would take place.
He made observations of the sun’s supposed orbit and attempted to do likewise with the more irregular orbit of the moon. Although partially successful, he could not make entirely accurate calculations.
Using measurements and timings related to the earth’s shadow during eclipses, other attempts were made to determine the size of the sun and moon and their distances from the earth. Again, while not entirely accurate, Hipparchus proposed that the distance of the moon from the earth was 240,000 miles. This is remarkably close to the modern figure.
. A Catalogue of Stars
Perhaps Hipparchus’ most important astronomical achievement was his plotting of the first known catalogue of the stars, despite warnings from some of his contemporaries that he was thus guilty of impiety. He was inspired to begin this work in 134 BC after allegedly seeing a “new star” which prompted his speculation that the stars were not fixed as had previously been thought.
He went on to record the position of 850 stars in the remaining years of his life, a significant achievement given the resources available to him. What is more, he devised a scale for recording a star’s magnitude or brightness: from the most visible (the first magnitude) to the faintest (the sixth). Though amended considerably, it is a scale still used today.
. Developing Trigonometry
Because of the accelerated developments Hipparchus was making in astronomy, he was required to break new ground in other disciplines, particularly mathematics, to facilitate his celestial observations and calculations. Most notably of all, he developed an early version of trigonometry. With no notion of sine available to him, he constructed a table of chords which calculated the relationship between the length of a line joining two points on a circle and the corresponding angle at the centre.
. Further Influence of Hipparchus
Although Hipparchus is considered to be one of the most influential astronomers of the ancient world, it is arguable that his most impacting achievements lay in the areas of mathematics and geography.
The geographer and astronomer Ptolemy cited Hipparchus as his most important predecessor, and he is most often revered for his astronomical measurements and cataloguing. Yet, as the attributed inventor of trigonometry, as well as being the first person to plot places on the earth’s surface using longitude and latitude, his influence has been long lasting and widespread.
He was able to apply his work on the trigonometry of spheres to the planet from which he made his observations. Significantly, he was the first person to use longitude and latitude in his mathematical calculations to position where places were on the earth’s surface. Like so many of Hipparchus’s achievements, it is his further pioneering work that still resonates today.
Hipparchus was born in Nicaea, Bithynia, now in modern Turkey, where he undertook some of his astronomical observations, along with sustained periods in Rhodes and to a lesser extent in Alexandria.
Most of the detail of Hipparchus’s life that has come down to us is taken from Ptolemy’s record of his achievements (because the vast majority of Hipparchus’s original work has been lost).
(Quantum Leaps): Sigmund Freud
1856–1939
“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to the unconscious activities of the mind.” – Freud
SIGMUND Freud’s popular impact remains profound even today. Yet for a scientist who changed the world, some critics would argue that his methods were at best unscientific and at worst downright reckless. Indeed, later thinkers in the fields of psychology and psychiatry have long since discredited many of his conclusions but still the Austrian’s influence pervades. Whatever the rights or wrongs of his ‘scientific’ deductions, Sigmund Freud remains the benchmark by which others working in the same field must compare themselves and compete against.
Medical Beginnings
Freud’s entry into science was far less controversial. He began by studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1873 and went on to take up a position at a hospital in the same city from 1882. It was time spent working with the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–93) in Paris 1885, however, which set him on the path of his future career. Here he worked with patients suffering from hysteria and began to analyse the causes of their behaviour. Additional research with Josef Breuer back in Vienna during the early 1890s helped develop the basis for all of his future work, culminating in the publication of Studies in Hysteria in 1895.
The Idea of ‘Free Association’
In common with views generally held at the time, at the heart of Freud’s conclusions was a belief that mental illness was normally a psychological rather than a physical brain disease. Once one accepted this premise then Freud’s introduction of the idea of “psychoanalysis” for diagnosing the causes of mental disorder (and indeed ultimately to explain all mental behaviour) was a logical one.
One of the innovative tools he developed to aid in this was the idea of “free association”. Rather than hypnotise people as was traditional, Freud advocated this method whereby patients enunciated thoughts or ideas which came into their consciousness without prior contemplation or analysis.
Dream Theory
From this Freud believed he could make an insight into the “unconscious” of a patient and, in particular, the “repressed” thoughts and emotions (often related to past negative experiences) which their “conscious” prevented from being articulated or enacted upon. For Freud, having a patient understand and acknowledge their repressed desires was a route to therapy and ultimately the treatment of a mental disorder. He also believed that dreams offered a major insight into repressed thoughts held in the unconscious mind. This is shown in his most prominent work – which fully established his revolutionary approach – and which is entitled The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1899.
While many critics were able to bear with – if not necessarily agree with – Freud’s interpretations up until this point, he caused an outcry with his 1905 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. His conclusions included the explanation that most repressed behaviour was in essence suppression of sexual impulses and, most shockingly, this activity began in infancy. It was here that he also introduced the now notorious concept of the Oedipus complex, a phrase used by Freud to describe feelings of sexual attraction of a child for its parent of the same sex, and hostility to the parent of the other sex. This phrase, Freud claimed, speculatively at best, was one that all children passed through.
Gradually, however, Freud’s analyses would gain credibility, if not necessarily with everyone, and certainly by the 1920s they had entered the popular consciousness on a global scale. He wrote many other texts including the 1923 The Ego and the ID. Freud effectively redefined the “unconscious” as the “ID”, an intangible collection of base impulses such as instincts and emotions present in the mind from birth. With experience, living and structure, aspects of the ID would gradually help formulate a person’s “ego”.
Freud By Name, Freudian By Nature
Freud’s legacy remains as much in the tools of language that he has bestowed on the modern world as anything else. Terms he introduced or of which he altered the meaning to give them our now common understanding, include: psychoanalysis, free association, the ID, the ego, neuroses, repression, the Oedipus complex and, of course, the Freudian slip. The structured, systematic approach he brought to analysing an inherently difficult-to-quantify subject also pervaded the work of his successors in the field.
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