The idea of ​​the world in ancient times table. How did ancient people imagine the Universe? Ancient Chinese ideas about the Earth

The ideas of the ancients about the Earth were based primarily on mythological ideas.
Some peoples believed that the Earth was flat and supported by three whales that floated across the vast ocean. Consequently, these whales were in their eyes the main foundations, the foundation of the whole world.
The increase in geographical information is associated primarily with travel and navigation, as well as with the development of simple astronomical observations.

Ancient Greeks imagined the Earth to be flat. This opinion was held, for example, by the ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who lived in the 6th century BC. He considered the Earth to be a flat disk surrounded by a sea inaccessible to humans, from which the stars emerge every evening and into which they set every morning. Every morning, the sun god Helios (later identified with Apollo) rose from the eastern sea in a golden chariot and made his way across the sky.

The world in the minds of the ancient Egyptians: below is the Earth, above it is the goddess of the sky; to the left and to the right is the ship of the Sun god, showing the path of the Sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.

The ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a hemisphere held by four elephant . The elephants are standing on a huge turtle, and the turtle is on a snake, which, curled up in a ring, closes the near-earth space.

Residents of Babylon imagined the Earth in the form of a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia is located. They knew that to the south of Babylon there was a sea, and to the east there were mountains that they did not dare cross. That’s why it seemed to them that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the “world” mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the solid sky - the heavenly world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air. The celestial land is the belt of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. The Sun appears in each constellation for about a month each year. The Sun, Moon and five planets move along this belt of land. Under the Earth there is an abyss - hell, where the souls of the dead descend. At night, the Sun passes through this underground from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern, so that in the morning it will again begin its daily journey across the sky. Watching the Sun set over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and also rose from the sea. Thus, the ancient Babylonians’ ideas about the Earth were based on observations of natural phenomena, but limited knowledge did not allow them to be correctly explained.

Earth according to the ancient Babylonians.

When people began to travel far, evidence gradually began to accumulate that the Earth was not flat, but convex.


Great ancient Greek scientist Pythagoras Samos(in the 6th century BC) first suggested that the Earth was spherical. Pythagoras was right. But it was possible to prove the Pythagorean hypothesis, and even more so to determine the radius of the globe much later. It is believed that this idea Pythagoras borrowed from the Egyptian priests. When the Egyptian priests knew about this, one can only guess, since, unlike the Greeks, they hid their knowledge from the general public.
Pythagoras himself may have also relied on the testimony of a simple sailor Skilacus of Karian, who in 515 BC. made a description of his voyages in the Mediterranean.

Famous ancient Greek scientist Aristotle(IV century BC)e.) was the first to use observations of the Earth to prove the sphericity of the Earth. lunar eclipses. Here are three facts:

1. The shadow of the Earth falling on the full Moon is always round. During eclipses, the Earth is turned to the Moon in different directions. But only the ball always casts a round shadow.
2. Ships, moving away from the observer into the sea, are not gradually lost from sight due to the long distance, but almost instantly seem to “sink”, disappearing beyond the horizon.
3. Some stars can only be seen from certain parts of the Earth, while to other observers they are never visible.

Claudius Ptolemy(2nd century AD) - ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, optician, music theorist and geographer. In the period from 127 to 151 he lived in Alexandria, where he conducted astronomical observations. He continued Aristotle's teaching regarding the sphericity of the Earth.
He created his geocentric system of the universe and taught that all celestial bodies move around the Earth in empty cosmic space.
Subsequently, the Ptolemaic system was recognized by the Christian Church.

The universe according to Ptolemy: the planets rotate in empty space.

Finally, an outstanding astronomer ancient world Aristarchus of Samos(end of the 4th - first half of the 3rd century BC) expressed the idea that it is not the Sun together with the planets that moves around the Earth, but the Earth and all the planets revolve around the Sun. However, he had very little evidence at his disposal.
And about 1,700 years passed before the Polish scientist managed to prove this Copernicus.

In this lesson we will learn about what the Universe is and how it works. We will discover the world of mysterious and incomprehensible outer space. Let's talk about how ancient civilizations imagined the Universe. Let's get acquainted with scientists whose ideas have occupied an important place in the development of science.

Theme: Universe

Lesson: How Ancient People Pictured the Universe

As we found out, methods of cognition can be different. The tasks and goals set for the study are also different. But the single most important thing will remain the interest of understanding the world, the Universe, living and nonliving things. What is the Universe?

Definition.Universe - this is limitless outer space and everything that fills it: celestial bodies, gas, dust.

If we look into the starry sky, we will see various star constellations, solar systems, the Moon - they are all components of the Universe, even the stars, which cannot be seen without the help of special instruments - telescopes (Fig. 1).

In ancient times, such telescopes did not exist, and people watched the movement of the Moon, Sun, and planets for thousands of years, so it is clear that modern views about the structure of the Universe did not arise instantly, but developed gradually, and the earliest views were significantly different from what we know today . Different peoples of the world imagined the Universe differently.

According to the ideas of the ancient Indians, our Earth was like a hemisphere, which rested on the backs of huge elephants that stood on a giant turtle. The turtle rested on a snake, which closed the space and personified the world (Fig. 2).

For example, the Egyptians had a different idea of ​​the structure of the Universe. Their views were expressed in the form of myth.

The god of the earth - Geb and the goddess of the sky - Nut loved each other very much, and therefore at first our Universe was fused together. Every evening Nut gave birth to stars that appeared in the sky. Every morning before sunrise she swallowed them. And this continued day after day, year after year, until Geb began to get irritated, which is why he called Nut a pig who eats his piglets. Then the sun god Ra intervened and called the wind god Shu to separate heaven and earth. So Nut ascended to heaven in the form of a cow. Sometimes Tehnud came to the aid of her husband Shu, but she very quickly got tired of supporting the heavenly cow and began to cry, and her tears fell like rain to the ground (Fig. 3).

The ancient Babylonians imagined the earth as a huge mountain. In the west of this mountain was Babylonia, which was surrounded by mountains on the east, and the sea in the south. The sea as a whole surrounded this entire mountain, and on top of it, in the form of an inverted bowl, was the sky. The inhabitants of Babylonia thought that there was also land and water in the sky, perhaps even life. The celestial land is the belt of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. They also believed that the sun goes out and goes back into the sea (Fig. 4). They were never able to explain the observed natural phenomena.

The ancient Jews imagined the Earth differently. They lived on a plain, and the Earth seemed to them to be a plain, with mountains rising here and there. Jews assigned a special place in the universe to the winds that bring rain or drought. The abode of the winds, in their opinion, was located in the lower zone of the sky and separated the Earth from the celestial waters: snow, rain and hail. Under the Earth there are waters, from which canals run up, feeding seas and rivers. The ancient Jews apparently had no idea about the shape of the entire Earth.

The ancient Greeks made a great contribution to the development of views about the structure of the Universe. For example, the philosopher Thales (Fig. 5) imagined the Universe as a liquid mass, inside of which there is a large bubble shaped like a hemisphere. The concave surface of this bubble is the vault of heaven, and on the lower, flat surface, like a cork, the flat Earth floats. It is not difficult to guess that Thales based the idea of ​​the Earth as a floating island on the fact that Greece is located on islands. Pythagoras (Fig. 6) was the first to suggest that our Earth is not flat, but similar to a ball. And Aristotle (Fig. 7), developing this hypothesis, created a new model of the world, according to which the motionless Earth is located in the center and is surrounded by eight solid and transparent spheres. The ninth - ensured the movement of all celestial spheres. According to these views, the Sun, Moon and the planets known at that time were attached to the eight spheres (Fig. 8). Aristotle's views were not shared by all scientists. Aristarchus of Samos came closest to the truth, because he believed that at the center of the Universe was not the Earth, but the Sun, but he could not prove this. Subsequently, his views were forgotten for many years.

Aristotle’s views were strengthened in science for a long time, for example, the ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy also located a stationary Earth in the center of the Universe, around which Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn revolved. The entire Universe was limited by the sphere of fixed stars. The scientist outlined all these views in his work “Mathematical Construction in Astronomy.” The views of Claudius Ptolemy lasted more than the 13th centuries and for a long time were a reference book for many generations of astronomers.

Rice. 7

In the next lesson we will talk about further development views on the Universe.

1. Melchakov L.F., Skatnik M.N. Natural history: textbook. for 3.5 grades avg. school - 8th ed. - M.: Education, 1992. - 240 pp.: ill.

2. Andreeva A.E. Natural history 5. / Ed. Traitaka D.I., Andreeva N.D. - M.: Mnemosyne.

3. Sergeev B.F., Tikhodeev O.N., Tikhodeeva M.Yu. Natural history 5.- M.: Astrel.

1. Melchakov L.F., Skatnik M.N., Natural history: textbook. for 3.5 grades avg. school - 8th ed. - M.: Education, 1992. - p. 150, assignments and questions. 3.

2. Outline Interesting Facts, which relate to the views of the ancient Greeks on the structure of the Universe.

3. Imagine that you need to observe the starry sky. Think over and describe the sequence of actions that you will perform.

4. * Invent a new Universe. Describe what is in it. What are the names of the planets and constellations? How do they interact with each other?

Ideas about the Universe in ancient times

Ancient myths about the Earth and the Universe

People have been observing the sky since ancient times. In that distant era, when people were completely powerless before nature, a belief arose in powerful forces that supposedly created the world and govern it; for many centuries the Moon, Sun, and planets were deified. We learn about this from the myths of all the peoples of the world.

This is how ancient people imagined “the dwelling of God in heaven”

The first ideas about the universe were very naive; they were closely intertwined with religious beliefs, which were based on the division of the world into two parts - earthly and heavenly. If now everyone knows that the Earth itself is a celestial body, then previously the “earthly” was opposed to the “heavenly”. They thought that there was a “firmament of heaven” to which the stars were attached, and the Earth was taken as the fixed center of the universe.

Different peoples did not develop a correct idea of ​​the Earth and its shape immediately and not at the same time. However, where exactly, when, and among which people it was most correct is difficult to establish. Very few reliable ancient documents and material monuments have been preserved about this.

According to legend, the ancient Indians imagined the Earth as a plane lying on the backs of elephants. Valuable historical information has reached us about how the ancient peoples who lived in the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the Nile Delta and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea - in Asia Minor and Southern Europe. For example, written documents from ancient Babylonia dating back about 6 thousand years have been preserved. The inhabitants of Babylon, who inherited their culture from even more ancient peoples, imagined the Earth in the form of a mountain, on the western slope of which Babylonia is located. They knew that to the south of Babylon there was a sea, and to the east there were mountains that they did not dare cross. That’s why it seemed to them that Babylonia was located on the western slope of the “world” mountain. This mountain is surrounded by the sea, and on the sea, like an overturned bowl, rests the solid sky - the heavenly world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air. The celestial land is the belt of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. The Sun appears in each constellation for about a month each year. The Sun, Moon and five planets move along this belt of land (since Babylonian times, people have been able to distinguish planets from stars: firstly, planets, unlike stars, do not twinkle, and secondly, the location of the planets relative to the familiar pattern of constellations is constantly changing) . Under the Earth there is an abyss - hell, where the souls of the dead descend. At night, the Sun passes through this underground from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern, so that in the morning it will again begin its daily journey across the sky. Watching the Sun set over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and also rose from the sea. Thus, the ancient Babylonians’ ideas about the Earth were based on observations of natural phenomena, but limited knowledge did not allow them to be correctly explained.

The ancient Jews imagined the Earth differently. They lived on a plain, and the Earth seemed to them to be a plain, with mountains rising here and there. Jews assigned a special place in the universe to the winds, which bring with them either rain or drought. The abode of the winds, in their opinion, was located in the lower zone of the sky and separated the Earth from the celestial waters: snow, rain and hail. Under the Earth there are waters, from which canals run up, feeding seas and rivers. The ancient Jews apparently had no idea about the shape of the entire Earth.

Ideas about the “firmament” in Abrahamic religions

The ancient Greeks and Egyptians had a similar concept of the cycle of day and night. The Egyptians believed that there was a celestial river flowing from east to west over the Earth, and there was an underground river flowing from east to west. During the day, the Sun god named Ra travels along the celestial river from east to west, and we see him as the Sun, and at night he returns back along the underground river. The ancient Greek myth differed from the Egyptian one only in that the Greek god of the Sun named Helios did not float across the sky on a river, but rode a chariot.

However, already in ancient times, such primitive myths ceased to suit thinking people. Already in the poems of the ancient Greek poet Homer “Iliad” and “Odyssey” the Earth is spoken of as a slightly convex disk, reminiscent of a warrior’s shield. The land is washed on all sides by the Ocean River. A copper firmament stretches above the Earth, along which the Sun moves, rising daily from the waters of the Ocean in the east and plunging into them in the west.

People watched the luminaries not only out of curiosity, but also because observing the movement of celestial bodies helped in planning agricultural work. For example, Agriculture Ancient Egypt depended on the Nile floods, which recurred annually. And it turned out that periods of Nile floods are preceded by the appearance in the sky of one of the brightest stars - Sirius, which, as a result of the annual rotation of celestial sulfur, becomes visible annually starting from a certain date. Later, when humanity settled in places where weather changes are noticeable with the changing seasons, observation of the movement of celestial bodies served to create the first calendars.

Ancient ideas about space and religion . The ancient farmer, tied to his piece of land, could not have had a large circle of observation and experience. He judged the world only on the basis of what he directly felt and saw with his own eyes. He believed that the world was divided into two completely different parts - the Earth and the sky. The earth seemed small and flat to him, above which, like the roof of a house, rose the crystal “firmament of heaven.” Above the “firmament” there are supposedly “upper waters”, which sometimes pour out through holes in the sky, by the will of God, onto the Earth in the form of rain. The Sun, Moon and other celestial bodies move across the sky around the Earth.

With such ideas, it was easy to come to the conclusion that everything in the world was created for man, that man is the “crown of creation,” that the Sun, Moon and stars shed their light on the Earth only for people. Moreover, every ancient people not only considered the Earth to be the center of the entire universe, but was inclined to believe that the very place where they lived was the center of the world. For example, the Chinese still call their country the Middle Kingdom; The Incas of Peru said that the center of the world is in the temple of Kutsko, whose name means “navel.”

In one form or another, we find this view among all the peoples of the ancient world - the Egyptians, Greeks, etc. Even Babylonian astronomy, despite its rather high development, still did not come to a new, more correct view of the sky and Earth, on structure of the universe. In the oldest Babylonian writings we read that the Earth has the appearance of a convex island surrounded by the ocean, and the sky is simply a solid dome resting on the earth's surface. The celestial bodies are attached to this dome, and it separates the waters “below” (the ocean flowing around an island on earth) from the waters “above” (rainwater). The sun rises in the morning, leaving the heavenly gate, and in the evening, when setting, it passes through the western gate and moves somewhere underground at night.

This primitive view of the structure of the entire world was not subject to any change in Babylon, despite the continued development of the science of the sky. But this will not surprise us if we remember that Babylonian (like Egyptian, etc.) astronomy was the science of the priests. It was only an auxiliary tool for compiling a calendar and developing a cult ritual and remained entirely captive of religious ideas inextricably linked with the anthropogeocentric worldview.

The Babylonian view of the universe influenced the biblical description of the world. In European-Christian sacred books, the view is everywhere held that the Earth plays an exceptional role in the whole world, which was created and exists only for man. About the heavens in the Bible, for example, it is said that they are “solid as a cast mirror” (Book of Job, XXXVII, 18) and that they are established on columns - “the earth shook, the foundations of the heavens trembled and moved” (Second Book of Kings, XXII, 8 ), “the pillars of heaven tremble” (book of Job, XXVI, 41). As for the question of what the Earth rests on, the same “sacred” in different places gives contradictory ideas: the Earth is established on some basis - “where were you when I laid the foundation of the Earth”, “on what are its foundations established” and who laid the cornerstone" (XXXIX, 4, 6), then a different view emerges - "he spread the north over the void, hung the Earth on nothing" (XXVI, 7).

The idea of ​​the exceptional position of the Earth in the world underlay not only every religion, but also astrology, which believed that by the movement of the planets and their position among the zodiacal constellations one can predict the future of nations, the fate of individuals, etc.

The enormous, comprehensive influence of the Sun on all processes occurring on Earth, on the life of plants and animals, was noticed very early by people. It was also found long ago that the time of year can be determined by the position of the stars in the sky, and therefore it seemed that, for example, the harvest depended on the stars, and not just on the Sun. All this ultimately led to the idea that all earthly events depend on the occurrence of certain celestial phenomena and that, therefore, all events in human life can be predicted from the celestial bodies. Therefore in ancient Egypt, in Babylon, Assyria and other ancient countries, astrology was very popular. Astrologer-priests made observations heavenly bodies not only for the calendar, but also for astrological fortune telling.

The Christian Church in the first centuries was unfriendly to it as a “pagan teaching” that recognized predestination and, therefore, contradicted the idea of ​​free will and responsibility for sins. However, during the Renaissance, astrology became widespread in Western Europe and even became a compulsory subject of teaching in a number of universities, which was in complete harmony with the anthropogeocentric worldview.

If the Earth, as the abode of the “crown of creation” - man, occupies a special position in the universe, and the heavenly bodies are created only for the Earth and its inhabitants, then, according to astrologers, it can be assumed that the planets (astrologers also included the Sun and Moon among the planets) influence everything that happens on Earth and the fate of individual people. Therefore, under kings, generals, etc., there was a special position of an astrologer who compiled horoscopes, i.e., predictions of future events based on the location of the planets among the constellations at the time of a person’s birth and other times. important points his life. Astrology and astronomy were closely related at that time, with astrology being the source of livelihood for astronomers. Moreover, both were based on the same anthropogeocentric idea of ​​the world.

This naive idea fully satisfied the needs of ancient agriculture, hunting, fishing and navigation, while people's experience was limited.

The Birth of the Scientific Approach . Already in ancient times, man was faced with the question: where does the Sun go after setting in the west? As we have seen, the Babylonians, who saw the sky as a solid hemisphere, believed that the Sun rose in the morning through the eastern “heavenly gate” and set in the evening through the western one. Thales, Anaximander and other Greek thinkers who lived between 600-500. until hr. era in the Ionian cities on the shores of Asia Minor, were no longer limited to the old question: what is above us and around us? They took a new path, posing another question: what is beneath us?

From the observation that some stars do not set, but describe a complete circle above the horizon, while others plunge below it and rise again, they broke away from visible impressions and came to the conclusion that the sky is spherical. But if this is so, if in addition to one dome-shaped “ceiling” above the Earth there is also a hemisphere below it, that is, if the sky has the shape of a complete sphere, then there is nothing to talk about “heavenly gates”. From this point of view, it is necessary that the spherical, spherical sky rotate around an axis, due to which the rising and setting of the luminaries occurs. It followed that the Earth does not lie on anything, but is isolated on all sides in space, and when the Sun; sets in the west, it describes the second half of its circular path on the invisible part of the celestial sphere.

However, the view continued to exist that the Earth was flat, that it was a disk or a thin cylinder, on the upper surface of which people lived. Anaximander (610-547 BC) made a very important amendment to this idea: he mentally increased the size of the celestial sphere and decreased the size of the Earth, so that the naive, primitive idea of ​​the Earth being limited by the sky disappeared. It thus turned out that the flat Earth, surrounded by an air shell, hangs freely in space, that equally distant from every point of the celestial sphere of almost infinite dimensions, it cannot fall either up or down and therefore remains in “equilibrium” in the center of the whole world . Of course, for a long time this idea of ​​Anaximander seemed dizzying, since it broke with the usual ideas.

After the whole world began to appear as a sphere, a further step was taken: ideas appeared that the Earth was not a flat disk or a cylinder, but a sphere. After all, if the Earth is flat, then the horizon should be the same in all places, and as a result of this, the view of the starry sky should be the same everywhere, while earthly objects from any point should be visible entirely from top to bottom. Meanwhile, Greek navigators noticed that the stars rising above the southern part of the horizon off the coast of Africa were not visible at all off the coast of the Black Sea, that is, in more northern countries; this indicated that the Earth has a curved surface and that the position of the horizon is different in different places. At the same time, the Greeks living on the islands and sailing the seas could not help but pay attention to the fact that when approaching the shore, the tops of high objects (mountains, ships, buildings, etc.) are first visible, then the middle ones and finally the lower ones; this led to the idea that the Earth should have some kind of convexity, shielding the lower parts of objects from us.

When people began to travel far, evidence gradually began to accumulate that the Earth was not flat, but convex. So, moving south, travelers noticed that in the southern side of the sky the stars rose above the horizon in proportion to the distance traveled and new stars appeared above the Earth that were not visible before. And in the northern side of the sky, on the contrary, the stars descend down to the horizon and then completely disappear behind it. The bulge of the Earth was also confirmed by observations of receding ships. The ship gradually disappears over the horizon. The hull of the ship has already disappeared and only the masts are visible above the surface of the sea. Then they disappear too. On this basis, people began to assume that the Earth was spherical.

The founder of the doctrine that the Earth is a ball hanging freely in space is considered to be Pythagoras, a philosopher and mathematician of the 6th century BC. In terms of its significance and boldness, this idea can be placed on a par with the doctrine of the movement of the Earth or with the discovery of the law of universal attraction. In any case, it is one of the greatest achievements of scientific thought of antiquity in general.

The famous ancient Greek scientist Aristotle (IV century BC) was the first to use observations of lunar eclipses to prove the sphericity of the Earth: the shadow from the Earth falling on the full Moon is always round. During eclipses, the Earth is turned to the Moon in different directions. But only the ball always casts a round shadow.

Finally, the outstanding astronomer of the ancient world, Aristarchus of Samos (late 4th - first half of the 3rd century BC) expressed the idea that it is not the Sun together with the planets that moves around the Earth, but the Earth and all the planets revolve around the Sun. However, he had very little evidence at his disposal. And about 1,700 years passed before the Polish scientist Copernicus managed to prove this.

Gradually, ideas about the Earth began to be based not on a speculative interpretation of individual phenomena, but on precise calculations and measurements.

Then the question arose about the size of the spherical Earth. This question was first solved, and in an amazingly simple manner, by the Greek scientist Eratosthenes (276-196 BC). Eratosthenes established that on the day of the summer solstice in Alexandria, at noon, the Sun was 7.2° from the zenith (from the highest point of the sky), i.e., one fiftieth of a circle. On the same day, to the south, in Siena (now here is the city of Assouan), lying on the same meridian with Alexandria, the Sun illuminated the bottom of the wells, i.e. there the Sun was exactly at the zenith, directly overhead. These two cities are 5,000 stadia apart. Therefore, Eratosthenes believed that if this distance is one fiftieth of the circumference of the globe, then its entire circumference is 250,000 stadia.

Eratosthenes' calculation scheme

Having put forward the idea of ​​the spherical shape of the firmament, the Ionian philosophical school, represented by Anaximander, took the first step along the path of renunciation of direct impressions. By the way, one of the representatives of this school, Anaximenes (VI century BC), considered the celestial sphere to be solid and transparent, and therefore invisible. According to this philosopher, which dominated the minds of people for a very long time, the heavenly “firmament” rotates around an axis, and the stars are driven into it like golden nails. However, one of the most remarkable representatives of the Ionian school, Anaxagoras (500-428 BC), completely rejected the idea of ​​\u200b\u200battaching the celestial bodies to a solid, crystalline vault of heaven. He considered the stars to consist of the same matter as the Earth, namely rocky masses, some of which are incandescent and luminous, while others are cold and dark. In connection with this idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe unity of earthly and celestial matter, Anaxagoras said that the Sun consists of molten substance similar to terrestrial matter. To support this, Anaxagoras cited meteorites falling from the sky as an example. He described one “heavenly stone” that fell in his time in Thrace and was equal in size to a millstone. He believed that this piece of iron, which fell to the Earth in daylight, originated from the Sun. This allegedly proves that our daylight consists of red-hot iron.

Anaxagoras, further, argued that the Sun is many times larger in size than the entire Peloponnese, and the Moon is approximately equal to the Peloponnese. The moon is so large that mountains and valleys fit on it, and - like the Earth - it is the habitat of living beings; This dark body receives its light from the Sun; it is eclipsed when it falls into the shadow cast by the Earth. It is characteristic that the question: if celestial bodies, like terrestrial bodies, are heavy, then why do they not fall to Earth? - Anaxagoras replied that the reason for this was their circular motion around the Earth. This means, from the point of view of this thinker, celestial bodies do not fall to Earth because their circular motion outweighs the force of the fall, which pulls the bodies down. In this regard, he compared the movement of the Moon around the Earth with the movement of a stone in a sling, the rapid rotation of which destroys the desire of the stone to fall to the Earth (this is probably the oldest concept of centrifugal force that has come down to us).

For a long time, Anaxagoras hid these views of his or expressed them only to his closest students. When these views became known thanks to the dissemination of his essay “On Nature” (only a few excerpts from it have reached us), he became a victim of obscurantism - he was imprisoned as an atheist and sentenced to death. Only thanks to the urgent efforts of his powerful student and friend Pericles, the death penalty for Anaxagoras was replaced by exile from his native country: he was released with the obligation to leave Athens forever.

This idea of ​​matter undoubtedly influenced the great ancient Greek materialist Democritus (460-370 or 360 BC), who developed the atomic theory of the world, which played a colossal role in the development of natural science and philosophy.

According to this theory of Democritus, the universe is beginningless and was never created by anyone; everything that was, is and will be is determined by necessity, depends on certain reasons, and not on the whim of some supernatural, divine beings. The universe consists of indivisible, qualitatively identical tiny particles- atoms that are in continuous motion from eternity. Atoms, differing in shape, change their relative positions, and for this to be possible, space must be completely empty. Any modification is caused by a change in the relative position of atoms, so that the variety of things depends on the number, shape and combination of atoms. The number of atoms is infinitely large and their shapes are infinitely different, but qualitatively these particles are completely identical. When moving in infinite space, they collide, and this causes vortices from which celestial bodies and various worlds are formed. Democritus taught that in infinite space an infinite number of combinations of atoms can form an infinite number of worlds.

In general, Democritus painted the following picture of the universe: the universe is infinite, its matter is eternal, and the number of worlds is countless, some of the worlds are similar to each other, others are completely different. These bodies are not permanent; they arise and disappear, we see them in various stages of development. Democritus took the whitish shimmering stripe in the sky, since ancient times called the Milky Way, for the accumulation of a colossal number of very closely spaced stars. He called the stars very distant suns; He said about the Moon that it is similar to the Earth, has mountains, valleys, etc.

The views of Democritus were clearly atheistic, and therefore they were considered “dangerous” for the masses. To prevent their spread, aristocrats and reactionaries did not hesitate in their means. For example, Plato and his students bought up the works of Democritus and destroyed them (only minor excerpts from them have reached us). As a result, the bold materialistic ideas of Democritus had only a minor influence in the era in which they arose.

“Father of the Church” Hippolytus (about 220 AD), in his work “Refutation of All Heresies,” sets out Democritus’s idea of ​​the universe as follows: “The worlds (according to Democritus) are countless and varied in size. In some of them there is neither sun nor moon, in others the sun and moon are larger in size than ours, and in some there are a greater number of them. The distances between the worlds are not equal, between some they are large, between others they are smaller, and some worlds are still growing, others are already in bloom, others are collapsing, and at the same time, worlds arise in some places and are destroyed in others. They die from each other, colliding with each other. Some worlds have no animals and plants and are completely devoid of moisture... Our world is in its prime, no longer able to accept anything from the outside.”

These ideas were used and developed by the outstanding thinker Epicurus (341-270 BC) - one of the pillars of ancient materialism. This philosopher defended the doctrine of the innumerability of worlds and clearly showed that from this doctrine the idea of ​​the spatial infinity of the universe necessarily follows.

Epicurus deduced the infinity of the universe from the fact that “universe” means “all-containing,” so that outside of it there is nothing and cannot be. He argued: “The Universe is infinite, space has neither bottom nor top, nor any end; the universe is infinite because everything limited has something outside itself; the external, after all, presupposes another next to itself, with which it could be compared, but precisely such another is not next to the universe and therefore cannot be compared with anything. Thus, there is nothing external, and therefore the universe has no boundaries - therefore it is infinite and unlimited."

The great Roman poet Lucretius Carus (99-55 BC), an ardent follower of Epicurus, approached this issue in the same way, who in his philosophical poem “On the Nature of Things” outlined the basic ideas of ancient materialism. In this atheistic work, Lucretius says: “If we must admit that there is nothing beyond the universe, it has no edges and no end or limit. And it doesn’t matter what part of the universe you are in: wherever you are, everywhere, from the place you occupy, it remains infinite in all directions.” By the way, Lucretius correctly emphasized the fact that from the idea of ​​​​the infinity of world space, the denial of the idea of ​​​​the central position of the Earth or any other point in the universe logically follows. He wrote: “... do not believe the statement that everything rushes towards some center of the universe,” because “... the universe has no center anywhere, since it has no end.”

If ancient natural philosophy put forward the doctrine of the innumerability of worlds and the spatial infinity of the universe, then ancient astronomy, on the contrary, tried to further establish geocentrism and, therefore, supported the doctrine of the spatial finitude of the universe. In connection with this contradiction, natural philosophers-materialists and practical astronomers usually simply completely ignored each other, without even trying to coordinate their various points vision. The losers, however, were the materialists, although their ideas were never completely forgotten in the ancient world. But these ideas, which refuted the religious worldview, could not achieve such a spread as the idealistic philosophy developed by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. These philosophers had a huge influence on the subsequent development of thought, but they did not contribute to the progress of our knowledge of the universe, since they set certain limits for science. For example, Socrates (469 - 399 BC) strictly commanded his students not to deal with questions about the movement of the heavenly bodies, their distances from the Earth, their origin, etc., considering these questions unsolvable. According to him Xenophon’s favorite student, he assured that “all this will forever remain a mystery to a mortal, and, of course, the gods themselves are saddened to see man’s efforts to unravel what they wanted to forever hide from him with an impenetrable veil.”

From the point of view of the progress of the natural scientific worldview, the ancient Greek idealistic philosophy, which reached its highest development in the teachings of Aristotle, was undoubtedly a step back in comparison with the teachings of Democritus. This philosophy, by its very essence, served as a justification for a religious worldview. It was clothed with a thick shell of animism, extreme anthropomorphism, naive teleology and other attributes of priesthood (which is why it was used by Christian theologians).

Questions and assignments?

1. How did the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks imagine the Earth and the Universe?

2. How is the structure of the world described in the Bible? Do these descriptions match the science?

3. why did people start studying the movement of celestial bodies?

4. How and when did people realize that the Earth is spherical?

5. Which of the ancient scientists came up with materialistic ideas? Why did religion and the church criticize them? Who was right in their disputes?

For thousands of years, people have been observing the movement of celestial bodies and natural phenomena. And we always wondered: how does the Universe work? In ancient times, the picture of the structure of the universe was greatly simplified. People simply divided the world into two parts - Heaven and Earth. Each nation has its own ideas about how the firmament works.

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The earth, in the minds of the peoples of antiquity, was a large flat disk, the surface of which was inhabited by people and everything that surrounded them. The Sun, Moon and 5 planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), according to ancient people, are small luminous celestial bodies attached to a sphere, which continuously rotate around the disk, making full turn during the day.

It was believed that the earth's firmament is motionless and is located in the center of the Universe, that is, every ancient people, one way or another, came to the idea: our planet is the center of the world.

Such a geocentric (from the Greek word Geo - earth) view was present among almost all peoples of the ancient world - Greeks, Egyptians, Slavs, Hindus…

Almost all theories about the world order, the origin of heaven and earth that appeared at that time were idealistic, since they had a divine origin.

But there were differences in the presentation of the structure of the universe, since they were based on myths, traditions and legends inherent in different civilizations.

There were four main theories: different, but somewhat similar ideas about the structure of the universe by ancient peoples.

Legends of India

The ancient peoples of India imagined the earth as a hemisphere resting on the backs of four huge elephants, which in turn stood on a turtle, and the entire near-earth space was closed by the black snake Sheshu.

Idea about the structure of the world in Greece

The ancient Greeks claimed that the Earth has the shape of a convex disk, reminiscent of a warrior’s shield in shape. The land was surrounded by an endless sea, from which the stars emerged every night. Every morning they drowned in its depths. The sun, represented by the god Helios on a golden chariot, rose early in the morning from the eastern sea, circled the sky and returned to its place again in the late evening. And the mighty Atlas held the firmament on his shoulders.

The ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus imagined the Universe as a liquid mass, inside of which there is a large hemisphere. The curved surface of the hemisphere is the vault of heaven, and the lower, flat surface, freely floating in the sea, is the Earth.

However, this outdated hypothesis was refuted by ancient Greek materialists, who provided convincing evidence about the roundness of the land. Aristotle was convinced of this by observing nature, how the stars change height over the horizon, and ships disappear behind the bulge of the earth.

Earth through the eyes of the ancient Egyptians

The people of Egypt imagined our planet completely differently. The planet seemed flat to the Egyptians, and the sky in the form of a huge dome rested on four high mountains located at the four corners of the world. Egypt was located in the center of the Earth.

The ancient Egyptians used images of their gods to personify spaces, surfaces and elements. The earth - the goddess Hebe - lay below, above it, bending, stood the goddess Nut ( starry sky), and the god of air Shu, who was between them, did not allow her to fall to Earth. It was believed that the goddess Nut swallowed the stars every day and gave birth to them again. The sun passed its way across the sky every day on a golden boat, ruled by the god Ra.

The ancient Slavs also had their own idea of ​​the structure of the world. The light, in their opinion, was divided into three parts:

All three worlds are connected to each other, like an axis, by the World Tree. The stars, the Sun and the Moon live in the branches of the sacred tree, and the Serpent lives at the roots. The sacred tree was considered a support, without which the world would collapse if it were destroyed.

The answer to the question of how ancient people imagined our planet can be found in ancient artifacts that have survived to this day.

Scientists find the first prototypes of geographical maps in different countries, they are known to us in the form of images on the walls of temples, frescoes, drawings in the first astronomical books. In ancient times, people sought to convey information about the structure of the world to subsequent generations. A person’s idea of ​​the Earth largely depended on the topography, nature and climate of the places where he lived.

The ancient Greeks imagined the Earth to be flat. They considered the earth to be a flat disk surrounded by a sea inaccessible to humans, from which the stars emerge every evening and into which they set every morning. The sun god Helios rose every morning from the eastern sea in a golden chariot and made his way across the sky.

The world in the minds of the ancient Egyptians: below is the Earth, above it is the goddess of the sky; to the left and to the right is the ship of the Sun god, showing the path of the Sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.

Ancient Indians represented the Earth in the form of a hemisphere held by four elephants. The elephants are standing on a huge turtle, and the turtle is on a snake, which, curled up in a ring, closes the near-earth space.

The inhabitants of Babylon, the Earth, in their opinion, is a mountain that they did not dare to cross, which is surrounded on all sides by the sea. Above them, in the form of an overturned bowl, is the starry sky - the celestial world, where, like on Earth, there is land, water and air. Under the Earth there is an abyss - hell, where the souls of the dead descend. At night, the Sun passes through this underground from the western edge of the Earth to the eastern, so that in the morning it will again begin its daily journey across the sky. Watching the Sun set over the sea horizon, people thought that it went into the sea and also rose from the sea.

Technological map of the lesson.

Item: Geography

Class: 5

Educational complex "Geography. Beginner course. 5th grade

• · Geography. Beginner course. 5th grade. Textbook (authors I.I. Barinova, A.A. Pleshakov, N.I. Sonin).
• · Geography. Beginner course. 5th grade. Toolkit(author I.I. Barinova)
• · Geography. Beginner course. 5th grade. Workbook (authors N.I. Sonin., S.V. Kurchina).
• · Geography. Beginner course. 5th grade. Electronic application.

Lesson type. Study and primary consolidation of new knowledge and methods of activity.

Lesson topic: How ancient people imagined the Universe.

The purpose of the lesson: to organize the activities of students in perceiving, comprehending and initially consolidating the idea of ​​​​geographical discoveries.

Lesson objectives:

a) educational: — the formation of the concept of how ancient people imagined the Universe;

b) developing

Continue to develop the ability to highlight the main points when working with geography textbooks and additional literature;

Improving self-control skills;

Stimulating curiosity.

c) educational

develop skills: - work in pairs, groups;

The ability to listen to the interlocutor;

Forms of organization cognitive activity: collective, individual, group.

Teaching aids: textbook, 5th grade geography atlas, diagrams of the universe according to Aristotle and Ptolemy, drawings. Illustrating the ideas of ancient people about the Universe, presentation, reflection cards, didactic material, computer, projector.

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