PHYSICAL SCIENCE

NAME: ____________________________________ DATE:________________________

GRADE & SECTION:__________________________ TEACHER:_____________________

CONCEPT NOTES 1
I. TOPIC: Ancient Greek Physics and Astronomy

II. LEARNING GOALS: The students should be able to:

a. Recognize different naked-eye astronomical observations on diurnal and annual motions of the sky
pattern, precession and equinoxes as sense data.
b. Summarize ancient Greek on the three types of terrestrial motion and the perfection of celestial
motion.
c. Enumerate naked-eye astronomical proofs that the Earth is round or spherical.

III. CONCEPTS

Two- domain view of the Universe

1. Celestial Domain
 The Celestial domain is perfect hence can only be made up of the perfect substance they called
“ether” and can only move in perfect motion: circular in path and constant in speed.
2. Terrestrial Domain
 The terrestrial domain objects are imperfect and that the tendency of things to attain
perfection is the cause of their motion. Meanwhile, they also believed that things, depending
on their composition of the elements — fire, air, water, and earth — tend to move towards the
center of the Universe (center of the Earth) or away from it with earth, naturally, as at the
center. Fire and water naturally move away from the center.

Motions of the Sky

1. Diurnal/ Daily motion of the sky
 The appearance that the objects in the sky moves relative to the Earth’s local horizon (celestial
objects: moon, Sun, stars, planets; there were only five known planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn) as observed for one whole day at the same location on Earth.

2. Annual motion of the sky

 The appearance that objects in the sky moves relative to the background stars as observed at
the same time of the day and at the same location on Earth.

Ancient Greek Philosophers

Pythagoras (c. 570 - c. 495 BC) — Universe is

mathematical; mathematics as the best way to express
truth about the Universe; Sun, moon and Earth are
spherical; placed Earth as the center of the Universe.

1
 Plato (c. 427 - c. 347 BC) — attainment of perfection as
absence of change; mathematical symmetries to
demonstrate perfect shapes (sphere and circle); celestial
spheres being crystalline and contains the moon, the Sun
and the stars; explaining the shadows — read on Plato’s
Allegory of the Cave and the Allegory of the Divided Line
— as his description or framework on how to look at the
Universe, in particular that the daily and annual patterns
of the sky must have a greater reality besides its
appearance.

Eudoxus (of Cnidus, 408 - 355 BC) — followed previous

models of the universe but added auxiliary spheres to
provide appropriate tilt to the planets’ path

Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) — two-domain system with

terrestrial domain containing four elements that tries
to attain perfection by being in their natural location
relative to the center of the Universe: the center of the
Earth. He was a learner of Plato.

IV. ACTIVITY/EXERCISES
Direction:
Take pictures of the sky using your mobile phones or digital camera. Take the
pictures from the same location and to take precautions in observing the Sun. Arrange
and label the pictures in sequence. From what you’ve seen from the photos, write down
what you have noticed about the movement of the objects in the sky. Describe the change
in position of the stars at different hours of the night.

V. ASSESSMENT
Direction:
Fill in the columns with a timeline showing the possible overlap of the lives of these
philosophers. You may add other philosophers who were contemporaries of the four.

Philosopher Name Lifetime period Philosophical contribution

2
3