KOSMOS

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Oct 12 13:14:45 EDT 2002


Forwarded for George Somsel <Polycarp66 at aol.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 07:41:04 EDT

In a message dated 10/12/2002 1:05:17 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
dhindley at compuserve.com writes:

>In that period (1st century CE) it was "known" in scientific circles (way
>less than 1% of the population) that the world was a sphere and that the
>sun, moon and planets were apparently circling about us. "Planet" is an
>English word that describes the fact that they seemed to travel along the
>"plane" of the ecliptic, and for all extents and purposes this is all that
>even the most educated 1st century person would know about them. It was also
>known in scientific circles that the stars appear to revolve along a
>slightly different axis that the sun, moon and planets. These things may
>have been "common" knowledge among the elite classes (these are not thought
>to exceed 5% of the total population) and to a lesser extent among the
>"retainer" classes (city folk, mainly, another 5%).
>

I feel I must correct you here.  The word 'planet' does not have its
derivation from from anything related directly to geometry such as 'plane'.
It derives from the word PLANAW meaning 'to wander'.  The planets were
"wanderers".

gfsomsel



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