Contechnology Quickie Thread
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 10:52 pm
This thread is open for anyone to ask questions about how their concultures should go about using and developing their technology, be it science, engineering, magic, what have you.
Here's the first question. It's long-winded for what I personally consider a "quickie", but I've tried my best to explain:
My conreligion's followers up until now have been following a purely observational lunisolar calendar. Now the religious authorities have become interested in astronomy because they want to refine their estimate of the synodic month and predict with high accuracy how long a given month will be, when the solstices and equinoxes will be, and by extension exactly when to insert leap months in the hopes of introducing a good rule-based calendar. They have only a weak understanding of trigonometry as we on Earth in the 21st century know it, but their geometrical knowledge is similar to that of the ancient Greeks. The main differences are that they can only approximate the area of a circle with inscribed and circumscribed polygons and that they went about a different way as regards proving the volume of a square pyramid (based on the fact that a cube can be cut equally into six such pyramids, though you can't slice completely through to do it). Where would a good starting point for their astronomical research be given this knowledge and their goal?
Here's the first question. It's long-winded for what I personally consider a "quickie", but I've tried my best to explain:
My conreligion's followers up until now have been following a purely observational lunisolar calendar. Now the religious authorities have become interested in astronomy because they want to refine their estimate of the synodic month and predict with high accuracy how long a given month will be, when the solstices and equinoxes will be, and by extension exactly when to insert leap months in the hopes of introducing a good rule-based calendar. They have only a weak understanding of trigonometry as we on Earth in the 21st century know it, but their geometrical knowledge is similar to that of the ancient Greeks. The main differences are that they can only approximate the area of a circle with inscribed and circumscribed polygons and that they went about a different way as regards proving the volume of a square pyramid (based on the fact that a cube can be cut equally into six such pyramids, though you can't slice completely through to do it). Where would a good starting point for their astronomical research be given this knowledge and their goal?
