History
The earliest discovered historical record of the saros is by the Chaldeans (ancient Babylonian astronomers) in the last several centuries BC. It was later known to Hipparchus, Pliny and Ptolemy, but under different names. The Sumerian/Babylonian word "šár" was one of the ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement and as a number appears to have had a value of 3600. The name "saros" (Greek: σάρος) was first given to the eclipse cycle by Edmond Halley in 1691, who took it from the Suda, a Byzantine lexicon of the 11th century. The information in the Suda in turn was derived directly or otherwise from the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea, which quoted Berossus. Although Halley's naming error was pointed out by Guillaume Le Gentil in 1756, the name continues to be used.
Mechanical calculation of the cycle is built into the Antikythera mechanism.
Read more about this topic: Saros (astronomy)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)