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I’m not familiar with the Ancient Greek objections here, but I remember Renaissance scientists being hung up on this same thing. They had measured the visible
by Hayvok 3y ago
I’m not familiar with the Ancient Greek objections here, but I remember Renaissance scientists being hung up on this same thing.
They had measured the visible diameter of stars and without any parallax, would’ve also meant that the stars were absurdly large in addition to far away.
I don’t think they had a problem with the distance, per se, but the implied size.
(You have to treat stars as points - any perceived diameter is an illusion - but nobody knew that at the time.)
- unwise-exe 3y agoYeah, using basic geometry to calculate the size of a star from it's distance and the size of the dot it makes in your telescope, doesn't give sensible answers when the size of the dot is due to quantum diffraction (an Airy disc). And since that's named after a guy who lived in the 1800's, you can guess how much the ancients knew about it.