Aristarchus

Aristarchus . Astronomer of Ancient Greece , Pythagorean, disciple of Strato . The measurements he carried out, by geometric means, of the distances from the Earth to the sun and the Moon , as well as the calculations on the size of said stars, led him to the conclusion that Aristotle ‘s geocentric system did not respond to reality. They moved him to create an eleocentric system. In Antiquity the system of Aristarchus of Samos did not find a good reception and remained forgotten until the times of Copernicus . ^[3]

Summary

[ disguise ]

• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Publications
  • 2 Contributions
• 2 References
• 3 Sources

Biographical summary

He was born in Samos , Greece – in the year 310 BC. He was a disciple of Straton of Lampsacos, head of the Peripatetic school founded by Aristotle . Years later Aristarchus would succeed Theophrastus as head of this institution between 288 and 287 BC.

Publications

Archimedes , in the Arenario – The Sand Accountant – explains that Aristarchus published a book based on certain hypotheses and in which it seems that the universe is much larger than it is believed to be. Their hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the Sun remain motionless, that the earth rotates around the Sun following the circumference of a circle with the Sun in the middle of the orbit, and that the sphere of the fixed stars also with the Sun as its center, It is so large that the circle in which the earth is supposed to rotate bears the same proportion to the distance from the fixed stars as the center of the sphere does to its surface.

Aristarchus was able to assume that the Sun was just another star than those seen in the sky. Unfortunately only one of Aristarchus’s works has survived to modern times, “On the Magnitudes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon”, and although most of his ideas are known through third parties, it can be said that it was one of those that has presented itself most advanced of its time.

Contributions

He was a skilled geometer but little is known about his life. His hypotheses about the universe have been drawn from references made by other authors after his death. Ptolemy in the Almagest names him as a conscientious observer of the solstices and equinoxes . He seems to have interpreted these observations correctly, attributing these phenomena to the movement of the Earth around the Sun. He deduced from this that it was necessary for the Earth’s orbit to be inclined to explain the changes of season.

Plutarch also refers to Aristarchus, summarizing his geocentric idea in which the sky is immobile and the Earth moves on an inclined orbit, rotating at the same time on its own axis. In the same text, Plutarch relates that Cleanthes (around 260 BC ) denounced Aristarchus as impious, on the basis that he displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.

Aristarchus considered the Sun to be a star and probably that the stars were suns. From what is known of his thoughts on the cosmos it can be summarized that he was one of the first to promulgate the Heliocentric theory .

He began measuring distance and comparing relative sizes in cosmology using trigonometry. He explained the earth’s rotation and translation movements . He deduced that the Earth’s orbit is tilted. He expanded the size of the known universe – although with a large margin of error since he calculated that the Sun was 19 times larger than the Moon and was 19 times further away, currently it is known that it is 400 times larger and is 400 times further away.

It is likely that if it had not been for the absence of his writings and the attacks that began to be felt by groups guided by beliefs and religious faith, the history of cosmology would have been different and that Aristarchus “The Geometer” would have the recognition that it deserves.