Solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BC Chr.

Solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BC Chr.
classification
Type	Total
area	America, Atlantic, Africa, Europe, Western Asia ; Total: Central America, Central and Southeast Europe, Asia Minor , Middle East
Saros cycle	57 (33 of 73)
Gamma value	0.3201
Greatest eclipse
Duration	6 minutes 4 seconds
place	Atlantic
location	38 ° 2 ′ N , 45 ° 0 ′ W Coordinates: 38 ° 2 ′ N , 45 ° 0 ′ W
time	May 28 -584 14:22:26 UT
size	1.0798

This eclipse reached Asia Minor shortly before its end (evening)

The solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BC Chr. Is to be emphasized as a total solar eclipse by two circumstances:

It was the first to have been given a prediction of time and place. Supposedly Thales of Miletus , one of the Seven Wise Men and supposedly the first natural philosopher , predicted it.
The solar eclipse is said to have occurred during a battle (so-called Battle of Halys ). As a result, the warring parties, Lydians and Medes , are said to have made peace after five years of war.

Thales' traditional prediction

The oldest reports about Thales can be found in the historian Herodotus . He says Thales predicted the year that day would turn into night.

Otto Neugebauer has shown that neither Thales nor the Babylonians or anyone else had the means at that time to predict a solar eclipse.

Ancient evidence of solar eclipses is also important because today's astrochronology and higher geodesy can use early dates of solar eclipses to determine the exact state of the earth's rotation and to estimate its secular slowdown in the past millennia.

Modern astronomical computer programs determine the time of total eclipse in large parts of Asia Minor to about an hour before sunset.

literature

Otto Neugebauer : The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. 2nd edition, Dover Publications, 1969, ISBN 0-486-22332-9 , pp. 142 f.
Otto Neugebauer: A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Volume 2, Springer, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-540-06995-X , p. 604.
Alden A. Mosshammer: Thales' Eclipse. In: Transactions of the American Philological Association. Volume 111, 1981, p. 145, JSTOR 284125 .
Dmitri Panchenko: Thales's Prediction of a Solar Eclipse. In: Journal for the History of Astronomy. Volume 25, 1994, pp. 275-288, bibcode : 1994JHA .... 25..275P .
F. Richard Stephenson , Louay J. Fatoohi: Thales' Prediction of a Solar Eclipse. In: Journal for the History of Astronomy. Volume 28, 1997, pp. 279-282, bibcode : 1997JHA .... 28..279S .
Dirk L. Couprie: How Thales was able to “predict” a solar eclipse without the help of alleged Mesopotamian wisdom. In: Early Science and Medicine. Volume 9, No. 4, 2004, ISSN 1383-7427 , pp. 321-337.
Miguel Querejeta: On the Eclipse of Thales, Cycles and Probabilities. In: Culture And Cosmos. Volume 15, No. 1, 2011, ISSN 1383-7427 , pp. 5–16 ( full text , PDF, accessed on November 11, 2018).
Walter Burkert : Again: Thales and the solar eclipse. In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie . Volume 156, 2013, pp. 225-234 ( full text , PDF, accessed on June 26, 2017).
Otta Wenskus : The alleged prediction of a solar eclipse by Thales of Miletus. Why this legend persists and why it is important not to believe it. In: Hermes . Volume 144, No. 1, 2016, pp. 2-17.

Web links

Remarks

↑ Herodotus, Historiae 1,74.
^ Francis Richard Stephenson , LJ Fatoohi: Thales's Prediction of a Solar Eclipse. In: Journal for the History of Astronomy. Volume 28, 1997, pp. 279-282, bibcode : 1997JHA .... 28..279S .

[1] Herodotus, Historiae 1,74.

[2] Francis Richard Stephenson , LJ Fatoohi: Thales's Prediction of a Solar Eclipse. In: Journal for the History of Astronomy. Volume 28, 1997, pp. 279-282, bibcode : 1997JHA .... 28..279S .