How the Ancient Egyptians understood the 'Demon Star' 3,200 years ago...

I found this article this morning, and thought it was quite an interesting story. Chalk another one up for our Egyptian ancestors.

Startling evidence suggests the ancient Egyptians understood the inner mechanics of a binary star system, spinning through our skies 93 light years away, more than 3,200 years ago.
Not only that, their specific calculations have helped support a scientific line of inquiry which only emerged just a few years ago.
The binary system - two stars which rotate around each other - was first noted in modern astronomy by a John Goodricke, back in 1783.
He spotted how Algol - also known as the Demon Star - appeared to decrease in brightness for a few hours every 2.87 days, and was the first to theorise that this was two stars blocking each other's light in relation to Earth.
Or we thought he was the first - it turns out the Egyptians apparently had this all figured 3,000 years earlier.

I always think it's awesome when an ancient source confirms what we think we have observed, instead of the other way around.

Source

Interesting - Here is a bit more info on the binary system

en.wikipedia.org...

the abstract from the paper:

The eclipses in binary stars give precise information of orbital period changes. Goodricke discovered the 2.867 days period in the eclipses of Algol in the year 1783. The irregular orbital period changes of this longest known eclipsing binary continue to puzzle astronomers. The mass transfer between the two members of this binary should cause a long-term increase of the orbital period, but observations over two centuries have not confirmed this effect. Here, we present evidence indicating that the period of Algol was 2.850 days three millenia ago. For religious reasons, the ancient Egyptians have recorded this period into the Cairo Calendar, which describes the repetitive changes of the Raging one. Cairo Calendar may be the oldest preserved historical document of the discovery of a variable star.

and the conclusion of the paper:

We discovered connections between Algol and Egyptian scribes writings that can hardly be a coincidence. All statistical, astrophysical, astronomical and egyptological details matched. The period recorded in CC may represent a valuable constraint for future studies of MT in EBs. Goodricke’s achievement in 1783 was outstanding. The same achievement by the scribes of ancient Egypt, if true, was literally fabulous.

I agree with them, but I find it highly unlikely that they would have understood the cause of the variability of Algol.


You can find the whole article here:PDF File

reply to post by Hellhound604

Given our current historical paradigm, I find a lot of things the ancients understood to have been "unlikely". Nevertheless, they continue to surprise us as we understand more and more about them. Unlikely? Maybe. Impossible? Unlikely.

reply to post by Klassified


My initial thought on the thread title and before reading was that this was going to be about our own solar system and the speculations regarding it being a binary system.

This, however, is quite refreshing. Thank you. It's interesting to see the degrees of celestial observations held into account by ancient civilizations verified and confirmed by our own modern observations.

I had thoughts of our own planetary system as well.
The gas balls of Jupiter and Saturn and others may have been a star that exploded
at the beginning of man's recorded history as noted by Velikovsky.
As recorded in the bible there was a bright light for seven days that ended in the
Great Flood with little light for some time. Then Velikovsky says the age of Saturn
took place in human history.

IN THE BEGINNING

see PART II: SATURN AND THE FLOOD

Obviously the ancients knew a lot more than we give them credit for.

Another example I like is Hubble's Law (the universe is expanding)

Although widely attributed to Edwin Hubble, the law was first derived from the General Relativity equations by Georges Lemaître in a 1927 article where he proposed that the Universe is expanding and suggested an estimated value of the rate of expansion, now called the Hubble constant. Two years later Edwin Hubble confirmed the existence of that law and determined a more accurate value for the constant that now bears his name. The recession velocity of the objects was inferred from their redshifts, many measured earlier by Vesto Slipher (1917) and related to velocity by him

Though in the Qu'ran (610-632 CE - 1295 years earlier):

"And it is We who have built the universe with (Our creative) power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it." - 51:47

reply to post by CitizenNum287119327

Interesting! I have not seen this before. Another point goes to the ancients.

reply to post by TeslaandLyne

Thanks! I'm going to take a read through that when I get time.

Definitely interesting. Although noticing the change in brightness and assigning the cause of it is not the same. Can anyone link a source where the Egyptian scribes correctly assigned the cause?

Are there any artifacts such as the alignment of the great pyramid that can be studied to further substantiate the claim.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
Definitely interesting. Although noticing the change in brightness and assigning the cause of it is not the same. Can anyone link a source where the Egyptian scribes correctly assigned the cause?

Exactly.

Plenty of people kept track of the brightness of bright stars like Algol but that doesn't mean they understood why the stars's brightness varied over time.

By the way when you see star names like Algol (Al-ghol) Aldebaran (Al-Debaran), Adhara (Al-'Adhara), Deneb (Dhanab ad-Dajajah) etc you are seeing the legacy of ancient Arab astronomers. A good majority of star names are Arabic in origin because at one time that part of the world had the most advanced observers and records of the stars. The library that was burned at Alexandria supposedly had plenty of records. We'll never know what they said.

Wikipedia: List of Arabic Star Names

Startling evidence suggests the ancient Egyptians understood the inner mechanics of a binary star system, spinning through our skies 93 light years away, more than 3,200 years ago.

Another "Daily Fail" article then. The ancient Egyptians didn't understand the inner mechanics of any binary star system, they simply couldn't. For them, stars were gods or other mythical beings. They only noted the changing brightness of the star, and incorporated it into their mythical beliefs. Kudos to them for keeping an accurate record, which the modern science can indeed correlate with the actual observable data. Boo to "Daily Fail" for inventing things again.