Nearly 3,000 years ago, ancient Babylonians began one of the longestrunning science experiments in history. The goal: to predict eclipses. This singular aim has driven innovation across the history of science and mathematics, from the Saros cycle to Greek geometry to Newton’s calculus to the threebody problem. Today, eclipse prediction is a precise science; NASA scientists predict eclipses hundreds of years into the future. (Featuring Stephen Wolfram.)


Read the Quanta article "How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became an Exact Science": https://www.quantamagazine.org/howth...

Chapters:
00:00 Solving the ThreeBody problem is key to predicting eclipses
00:52 Importance of eclipses to ancient civilizations
01:20 The lunar phase cycles, plane of ecliptic, draconic month, anomalistic month
02:18 Discovery of the saros cycle by the Babylonians
03:34 The Antikythera mechanism encodes the saros cycle
04:22 Newton's discoveries lead to new calculations of the eclipse
00:48 How to solve the threebody problem
05:24 NASA's solution to the threebody problem, location of the Earth, moon and sun
06:51 JPL Development Ephemeris
07:25 Predicting future eclipses
08:14 The end of the current saros series


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