The Development of Astronomy: What Might Have Been

Mercury, September/October 2004 Table of Contents

Courtesy of CTIO/AURA/NSF

by Sun Kwok

Almost as soon as humans developed a sense of awareness of their surroundings, they were awed by the heavens. As the Sun sets, thousands of stars appear in dark skies above us. These glittering stars have varying degrees of brightness and seem to be arranged in patterns. As early humans began to think and imagine the meanings of these patterns, situated in regions of the sky called constellations, they must have wondered a great deal about whether those points of light carried meaning and even messages for them.

Because human activities were highly restricted at night due to difficulties in finding our way around, sky watching was the main activity. The keen observers noticed that the positions of stars are not fixed, and in fact the stellar patterns drift across the sky as the night passes. Further, in subsequent nights, they observed the same stars rising a little earlier each night. As the seasons pass, new stars will rise above the eastern horizon, and old stars disappear below the western horizon. We have stars of summer and stars of winter, and this cycle repeats itself year after year.

The recognition of patterns of nature, and the seeking of explanations for them, is what science is all about. For this reason, we can safely say that astronomy is the oldest science. Another property of science is its predictive power. As the Sun moves across the sky every day, the highest point it reaches gradually changes. In the warm season the Sun reaches high in the sky, whereas in the cold season the Sun seems to drift not much above the horizon. Such seasonal variations of the positions of the Sun allowed early humans to predict the coming of spring, an important capability to those involved in the development of agriculture—farmers need to know when to seed.

The science of astronomy, therefore, had great practical value, and the study of the heavens was a serious business, not just intellectual curiosity. But is the development of the astronomical science in human history inevitable? Could our awareness of the Universe be different under different circumstances? Let us explore these questions.

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