A Heaven round the Stars

Fascination with the beauty of night skies is as old as humanity itself. Observations and study of the stars is as old as the earliest peoples as is the very beginnings of systematic study. Almost all the most ancient civilisations many cultures many peoples were awed by the splendour and secrets eternal to stars and vast expanses of immense voids. Some claim even that pre-historic monuments such as the Inca temples the colossal pyramids, Stone Henge the statues of Easter Island and others, are believed to be stellar observatories and that this proves that some detailed knowledge must have aready existed much deeper in man's history.

We will be speaking of astrology in its broadest sense spanning centuries and all civilisations  forming a core part of society, of everyday life and religion.

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In seperate times different cultures and kinds of religious systems heavenly bodies were believed to influence events and our lives on earth. These are beliefs such as in horoscopes that predict the future and personal fortune telling by the constelations and the Zodiac. These kind of practices existed as long ago as back in history to Babylon 4000BC and early Biblical times, as priests prophets soothsayers, as the great thinkers, the Greek and the Roman philosophers. Events in the night skies and the stars and moon and the sun play a role too in the alleged practice of sorcery, beliefs in magic the supernatural and in mystic philosophy. All this even from the dawn of modern man.

These efforts should be of great value and certainly not just a mixture of cooked superstitions.

From what I've seen the predictions and foretelling of history as in the course an individuals' life too, indeed for different persons I would say certainly there really isn't much success. In fact the value of ancient "astronomy"surely lies in information of astronomical measurements and data kept and accurate historic records of it. Astrological interpritations by themselves are not of much use. Fortune-telling in general seems always rather vague and open to all different kinds of stories and of course usually are quite happy and pleasant and you can choose desired meaning to fit. I am especially referring to the regular "The stars foretell" as has long been popular in the newspapers, telling people what they want to hear and of course self-fulfilling prophesies.

Patterns and cycles of nature may be identified for example the length of days, the full moon, months seasons and years together with very regular reccurence of certain events. Detailed almanacs were invented even by the most ancient civilisations and mostly based on solar years, on the full moon cycle and such and play a role in many religions. For reliable knowledge of such occurrences information obtained from collected data as well as of nature. As of weather patterns and regular occurence of certain seemingly unrelated events are identified and indeed can  provide reliable and useful predictions.

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The transition to formal astronomy as an exact science would be with the first optical telescopes in the 1700s but there were instruments long before, as used in the expeditions of the explorers and first seafarers for navigation, for accurate measurements the astrolabe and secstant for measuring altitude and other angles.

Inherently since in all astronomy studies of deep space only observations are possible, there is no interaction with far outer space and thus no experiments are possible to test and evaluate claims. Your tools consist in the framework of the current theories of physics and broader natural science. Thus both astrology and astronomy in essence consist of recorded events, spatial and time measurements, a body of empirical facts and then interpretations. Discoveries and inhereted knowledge is passed down the generations.

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To explain some concepts and ideas suppose you are watching your favourite dvd. Surely you cannot interact at all you are completely passive. You cannot influence the movie in any way. You cannot influence any of the happenings. You are unable to interact in any concievable way. What is more you are in fact not even looking at the action and have no part in it. You looking at your TV and your TV screen and not the movie.

It has to be assumed that the laws of physics and with it the laws of nature hold exacly the same everywhere in the universe. If not you will get absolutely nowhere. It is a crucial principle. And this assumption is an act of faith. Without it you will get nowhere.

If I may digress further in order to clarify a few things, "actual" reality is a material (real) physical event or situation or process. A model is a mathematical abstraction of this reality with consideration of all relevant information and eliminating neglible effects and conditions. It is reduced to be as simple as possible. The model can then be analised with the techiques of mathematics.

A theoretical framework has to be chosen. In the physics of mechanics usually such a setting would be either classical or relativistic theory.

As an example suppose I drop a coin into a wishing well. Such a physical well is concrete reality (if it exists!) The model in turn concerns how far the coin has fallen and time taken under constant linear gravitational accelleration without other considerations. It is a purely mathematical description ignoring all information that is considered irrevelant, but now it can be refined further for example taking into account of the speed of sound.

There exists no perfect model. It is impossible. However one should (hopefully!) often be able to obtain very accurate and useful approximations.

Thus there are three considerations in the mathematical analysis of any particular real-world problem. They are the physical reality, scientific laws and then appropriate modelling.

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I have the privilege of having studied some seminal research papers on "glitches" in pulsar spin and have also worked more recently on moon rotations and angular momentum in a classical mechanics setting. One is tempted to coin a term "astrofantasy" as a science of entertainment make-believe and dreams. Look there is a place in anything for imagination and I don't mind and speculation and fantasy but please don't present it as simply truth and fact.

Allow me to elaborate a bit. A Pulsar is observed described and studied as a extremely distant fast spinning object the pulses caused by immensely powerful spinning magnetic fields, a so-called neutron star seems to be an acceptable feasable believable explanation. There is a difference, the observations are fact whereas the explanation is only one of possible it is an interpretation rather and a very attractive a description of the reality in essence, but in the end still it is speculation.

As an example in a typical journal research article introducing a new concept for pulsars as "neutron stars" or else your so-called "black holes" such are defined as possible explanations but essentially it is little more than educated guess work. However by the second page of the article now it has slipped in and the same this is now fact. Make no mistake this is a mega-big-bucks business and of course you have your "authorities" which in fact are just celebrities.

There are many conflicting interpritations, beliefs and claims already in astrophics today, theories taken as gospel that cannot be tested and as such verified, or negated and disproved, for instance foremost the fundamental issue of "dark matter" and "dark energy". The explanations offered seems of no weight and even pure speculation. You have the same situation. Anything goes. If a theory in astronomy is apparantly feasable and made to be believable, at the same time just as entertaining, wierd and wonderful fantasy you'll get away with it.
 
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I am proposing exhaustive inquiry and thorough inventory. Admittedly it has to be a gigantic amount of work but will be well whorthwile.

Through ages records have been kept of observations but clearly, of course there could be no interaction either such as controlled experiments and I cannot see how there could ever be. Unfortunately this means you cannot prove, verify, disprove or negate anything no matter how mundane or strange and exotic.

At a very elementary level your facts still today are based so and rely on masses of data and ultimately measurements such as positions colour and other properties of stars and the stellar bodies. However it all must be of much practical and historic value. It would be a worthy challenge to undertake an inventory up to and including today. Has there ever been a thorough objective study? Sober and unbiased? It is not all purely superstition although there is really no other motivation for content for beliefs than that they appeared feasable and were popular.

The practice of astrology is simply not taken seriously and as just nonsense. Has anyone attempted  honest stock taking? Has anyone ever attempted critical study? Today's explanations sound much more feasable as science but honestly even astrophysics also consists mainly of imagination, fantasy and speculation and I believe always will be.

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"And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars."

-Dylan Thomas