Understanding the heavens

Author: Justine Gros

We live in a world in perpetual evolution; where much more powerful forces dominate us. In order to understand, adapt, and tame this world, men have used and still use sciences and mathematics. At the base of all things, these have allowed us and still allow us to discover the secrets of which the Earth as the sky abounds. The universe is vast and is certainly the thing on which we ask ourselves the most questions. However, thanks to mathematics, we have been able, over the generations, to discover and understand many things about it.

Geometry is one of the most important bases in mathematics, whose own bases were invented in 300 BC by a Greek mathematician: Euclid. His work has been used for more than 2000 years of teaching and his conception of the so-called "Euclidean" geometry allowed the creation of another type of geometry called "non-Euclidean" which has become one of the most important theories in mathematics, especially for understanding the heavens.
On this picture we can see the book Elements of geometry written by Euclid and which is the first translation in English. We can also see models used to learn geometry in 1800 and "non-Euclidean" models of geometry.		This astronomical clock was created by Samuel Waston in 1695. Based on the geometry of the movement of the stars, this clock allows to give the time, but also to show the movement of the Moon, the Sun and other stars in the universe!