The Power of Stars How Celestial Observations Have Shaped Civilizati
What are some of the connections that bind us to the stars? How have these connections been established? And how have people all around the world and throughout time reacted to the night sky, the sun and moon, in their poetry, mythology, rituals, and temp
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Bryan E. Penprase
The Power of Stars How Celestial Observations Have Shaped Civilization
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Bryan E. Penprase Department of Physics & Astronomy Pomona College N. College Ave. 610 91711 Claremont CA, USA [email protected]
Additional material to this book can be downloaded from http:// extras.springer.com. ISBN 978-1-4419-6802-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-6803-6 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-6803-6 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2010932671 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Cover illustration: a collage of images including the Welsh megalithic site of Llech y Drybedd, known as a dolmen, and perhaps used as a burial site more than 3000 years ago (foreground; photo by author), with star trails from an image of Mauna Kea (Gemini Observatory/AURA), and background image from the Hubble Ultra-Deep field (NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team). Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Foreword
This book is based on a course which I have taught at Pomona College for nearly 15 years, entitled “Archaeoastronomy and World Cosmology.” I would like to encourage others to make use of this book as a textbook for a similar course and am happy to provide additional curricular materials on request. The book also can be used as guide to the night sky for anyone interested in learning about how the many cultures on the Earth, ancient and modern, have responded to the star and modeled the universe. Pomona College has been an ideal environment for developing this book and I am grateful to the college and the physics and astronomy department for their support of my course. Pomona College encourages innovation and experimentation in the classroom and offers excellent students who have helped me develop the course and some of the topics covered in the book. I have to thank these students for their questions, their enthusiasm, their projects, and their encouragement. Two students in particular were critical to the book’s completion, David Morrison, who provided some interactive star maps, and Kimberly Aldinger, whose artistry made the sky map constellation figures possible. My archaeoastronomy education began with a set of references provided by Dr. Ed Krupp of Griffith Observatory, who has been a great i
