Mathematics and Astronomy

My friend Milo Gardner, has pointed out his expectation of finding mathematical material in this blog.

"Great idea. Waiting for the historical threads. Astronomy has long been known as the birth-mother of mathematics ... around the world ... any any time."


Something relevant to astronomy and mathematics happened recently.

Dawn, the NASA spacecraft left Vesta in the direction of Ceres on September 5.

The great Carl Friedrich Gauss at age 24 calculated the orbit of Ceres, with enough precision to allow its observation.

"By this time, the apparent position of Ceres had changed (mostly due to the Earth's orbital motion), and was too close to the Sun's glare for other astronomers to confirm Piazzi's observations. Toward the end of the year, Ceres should have been visible again, but after such a long time it was difficult to predict its exact position. To recover Ceres, Carl Friedrich Gauss, then 24 years old, developed an efficient method of orbit determination.^[32] In only a few weeks, he predicted the path of Ceres and sent his results to von Zach. On 31 December 1801, von Zach andHeinrich W. M. Olbers found Ceres near the predicted position and thus recovered it.^[32]"


Wikipedia

Astronomy has always depended on clear and methodical thinking, the characteristics of Mathematics.

The prince of Mathematics recovered Ceres!

By 2015, Dawn will be in Ceres.

Awesome!