The study of astronomy is one of the oldest studies of science. People from ancient times have left evidence of their study of the skies. The Great Pyramids of Giza were built in the same pattern as the constellation Orion’s Belt. The Mayans had made their calendar by studying the stars. Basically their whole life depended on the stars.
1 Because of this, Mayas strived to live a life that would follow the cycles of the universe, in conjunction with the cycles of time. 2 In this way, they hoped to please the "daily" gods. The Olmec civilization flourished before the Maya, as the former provided the foundation for the structures and beliefs of many Mesoamerican nations. One of these structures was the calendar system which the Olmec developed. Their "calendar year" consisted of fifty-two years.
Many of us have heard that December 21, 2012, will be the end of the world. However, educating us about the different Mayan Calendars may help us to better understand their true meaning(s) of astrology, legend and the fate of mankind. II. How many of us know exactly what the Mayan Calendars are or what their specific purpose is? How many different versions of the Mayan Calendars are there, or if one of the calendars is more important than the other?
Cycles in Time and History- The very first Mitzva the Jewish people were given was to establish a calendar based on only the moon and not the sun. The idea represented in this colossal and monumental act was that of complete and final divergence from the Egyptian culture. The Egyptians were of the belief that they came from the sun, their sun god, was considered the source that they received their sustenance and power from. The idea represented therein is, that while the sun is stationary and unchanging the moon however, is constantly changing and renewing within every month. The Egyptians believed that as the sun is constant and unchanging they believed that they have no free will or moral freedom.
They posessed herbs that cure common alements too. India was the medical superpower of the world at this time. Ancient India had astronomy also. They studied the stars and sky with great interest. They could caculate when eclipses were to happen.
Hipparchus of Rhodes, the first scientist to systematically use trigonometry ,calculated the times of eclipses of the sun and the moon and the length of the year according to both the sun and the moon and Hellenistic geographers knew that the earth was round Alexandria Eratosthenes calculated the diameter of the earth to within 50 miles (70 kilometers) of the actual figure He also, claimed that people could reach India by sailing west around the world  Characteristics of Hellenistic Science  There are two main characteristics of Hellenistic Science  The first one is that scientist learned so much using simple instruments  They didn’t have any microscopes, telescopes, compasses, or delicate balances for weighing small objects  The second one is that the Hellenistic Greeks made little effort to apply their scientific knowledge in practical ways  They valued knowledge for its own sake, and had little interest in inventions or mechanical progress  Example: a scientist named Hero invented a steam engine, however it was only thought of as an interesting toy  The Greeks also figured that the labor saving inventions would help the slaves, and they didn’t find that
Circumference of the World In 240 B.C., the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes made the first accurate measurement of the circumference of Earth. By noting the angles of shadows in two cities on the Summer Solstice, and by performing the right calculations using his knowledge of geometry and the distance between the cities, Eratosthenes was able to make a remarkably accurate calculation of the circumference of Earth. Eratosthenes lived in the city of Alexandria, near the mouth of the Nile River by the Mediterranean coast, in northern Egypt. He knew that on a certain day each year, the Summer Solstice, in the town of Syene in southern Egypt, pillars cast no shadow, and there was no shadow at the bottom of wells either. He realized that this meant the Sun was directly overhead in Syene at noon on that day each year.
In the following century it was moved November 1st in an effort to mix the pagan and Christian holiday. The night before All Saints Day somehow became a holy or hallowed eve and started to be celebrated. This is where we get the name Halloween. The Reformation banned All Saints Day, but in Ireland, Halloween continued to be celebrated as a secular holiday. Along with other festivals, the celebration of Halloween was forbidden among the early American colonists, although in the 1800s there developed festivals that marked the beginning and end of harvest and included parts of Halloween.
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking Written by one of the greatest minds of this century, A Brief History of Time covers the most revolutionary scientists since 340 BC in the fields of subatomic particle physics, theoretical physics, and astrophysics. The subjects of of quantum physics and general relativity are also brought up later in the book as Hawking moves into the subject of the Theory of Everything, or quantum relativity, and the struggles scientists, including Hawking, have gone through to try to understand this and make it into a unified theory. Lastly, Hawking also covers the miraculous four-dimensional spacetime and the scientists who have impacted the field, like Albert Einstein and James Maxwell, throughout the past two centuries to help shape what we now call theoretical particle physics. 340 BC, a greek philosopher by the name of Aristotle began curiously exploring the heavens in a search for an explanation as to what was out there. Aristotle wrote the book On the Heavens that covered two main arguments.
winter time etc. Keeping a leap year ensures that future generations do not have to have festivals and seasons disorientated from when we have them, for example if we did not have a leap year, Christmas would be celebrated in around July time. We keep the leap year so that future and present generations know which months connotate which conditions and seasons and festivals and the dates do not change much if a leap year is kept. Keeping a leap year also allows time to be measured accurately as if the 6 hours we lose daily are unaccounted for, the calculated time would be different to how long the earth actually took to orbit the sun, returning to its original position, so scientifically it is significant too. L: Linking back to the question, I think that the leap year shuld not be abolished, as it helps accurately keep track fo time and allows the seasons and festivals to remain in the same