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| CfA Colloquium Schedule Spring 2013 | ||
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24 January 2013Speaker: Owen Gingerich (Harvard/CfA) Title: THE GREATEST MYTH IN THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY Abstract: "But perhaps the theory has too many epicycles..." We all know that the metaphor means that the theory is unnecessarily complicated, like the over-embellished Ptolemaic astronomy at the time of Copernicus. For more than forty years I have been fighting this historical misconception, the notion of epicycles-on-epicycles. But today I realize that there is another related myth, even more deeply ingrained, a way of unwittingly viewing the historical record with such modern standards that it comes as a shock to realize how anachronistic and false that is. Be prepared to have your astronomical vision of the past two millennia jolted!
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