Astronomical Math
Search for other papers by Robert Ryden in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
High school mathematics teachers are always looking for applications that are real and yet accessible to high school students. Astronomy has been little used in that respect, even though high school students can understand many of the problems of classical astronomy. Examples of such problems include the following: How did classical astronomers calculate the diameters and masses of Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and the planets? How did they calculate the distances to the Sun and Moon? How did they calculate the distances to the planets and their orbital periods? Many students are surprised to learn that most of these questions were first answered, often quite accurately, using mathematics that they can understand.
Footnotes
Bob Ryden, rydenr@isb.ac.th, teaches mathematics at the International School Bangkok, P.O. Box 20-1015 Ha Yaek Pakkret, Nonthaburi 11120, Thailand. Bob Ryden is interested in applications of mathematics.
