I’m reading James Hogan’s “Cradle of Saturn.” On page 62, it says, “Old astronomic tables from places as far apart as Egypt, Sumeria, India, China, Mexico … all show four visible planets, not five. And in each case, the missing planet is Venus.”
I have heard that Venus was sometimes recorded as two different planets (morning star and evening star being different), but don’t recall anythin about its being missing. Hogan is scientifically pretty literate so I’m wondering if anyone knows of any other cite for this. And please don’t send me to Velikovsky – I don’t know if it is there, but it sounds like something that might be.
On checking out Cradle of Saturn on Google Books I see it is a work of science fiction, and other stuff in the same paragraph is plainly untrue, such as the assertion that the accuracy of astronomical tables from ancient Egypt, Sumeria, India, China, and Mexico, was not equaled until the 19th century. I am pretty sure the data collected by Hipparchus of Rhodes, in the 2nd century B.C. (and the tables derived therefrom) were noticeably more accurate, and certainly the data collected by Tycho Brahe and made into tables by Kepler in the 17th century were very much more accurate than any ancient records. Hogan may or may not know better, but I am afraid he is clearly making this up for the benefit of the story.
I was going to say that Saturn was not recognized as a planet in the oldest astronomical records - it moves too slowly against the background of the stars to be as obviously a planet as the other naked eye ones - although I think it may have been recognized as one sometime in the Babylonian era (sorry, I can’t find the relevant cite at the moment). I thought perhaps that your author had somehow confused Venus and Saturn, but looking at the quotation in context, that is clearly not it. He is just making stuff up (which is fine in Science Fiction).
If a culture has any records of any astronomical body whatsoever other than the Sun and Moon, they have records of Venus. If Hogan says otherwise, then he’s engaging in the scientific practice which is technically referred to as pulling stuff out of his ass.
Now, you will sometimes encounter astronomical records which are missing a planet, but in such cases, the missing planet is always Mercury. Which can be simply-enough explained by the fact that Mercury is always close to the Sun in the sky, and thus often lost in twilight, unless you’re very careful about your observations.
I think you’re confusing Saturn with Uranus. Saturn was recognized as a planet by the ancients - the reason the Greeks associated it with the ancient god Cronos was because it moved so slowly against the stars.
Uranus, on the other hand, is visible to the naked eye if you know where to look, but was not recognized as a planet by the ancients because it moves so slowly.
No I am not confusing Saturn with Uranus, and I am well aware that the classical Greeks knew about Saturn (and that Uranus can be seen with the naked eye, but was not recognized as a planet until the 18th century). Maybe you are confused about the dating of early civilizations. I am talking about people like the Sumerians, Early Egyptians, and probably early Babylonians, all at their height centuries or even millennia before the Greek era. As I said, I think (although I am not sure) that Saturn was recognized to be a planet sometime during the Babylonian era. Babylonian civilization lasted for thousands of years (although Sumerians and Egyptians were both civilized much earlier), and they put a lot of resources into astronomy.
No shit, I was returning home in the morning after a night shift and I thought it was some damned giant aircraft with its landing lights on coming in out in the middle of nowhere. It was bright enough to catch my sleepy eye even with the sun in the east near it.
Scroll down to see the international station and venus in daylight, im fucking pressive!
From the small amount I read on Google Books, I think the conceit, in the book, is that Venus actually was not there in ancient times. It is a Velikovsky style idea (but just to make a fun story I think).
It is only meant to be true in the sense that it is true that starships use warp drive powered by dilithium crystals in the Star Trek universe.
Hogan’s books often have un-orthodox planetary hi-jinks as part of the background.
His website also has essays where he argues in favour of various fringe scientific theories and points out apparent flaws in accepted theory; he’s an affable bloke and I’m not entirely sure if he believes any of it, or just likes poking at scientific orthodoxy.
But I think he probably does believe in some sort of Velikovskian history to the solar system.
I’ve read a lot of his earlier books but not Cradle of Saturn although I have browsed the first chapter or two.
Note that under the Velikovsky mind-set, the fact that the ancients kept so many excellent records about Venus is “proof” that it’s a recent addition to the Solar System. (As opposed, say, to be being the brightest point of light in the sky.)
Hogan also claims (or used to) that the disease AIDS doesn’t exist. I’m not sure if he actually believes this, or is again poking at science. But I wouldn’t accept his statements on science as accurate. (But his books are wonderful reading!)
Since Hogan’s own website has a page written by him called The Case for Taking Velikovsky Seriously, which repeats this - long since discredited - argument about ancient astronomical records as evidence for doing so, I’m afraid it’s difficult to avoid the Velikovskian angle.
Indeed, given the tendency for his followers to use Velikovsky as just a starting point from which to hare off in some idiosyncratic direction of their own, Hogan strikes me as unusually orthodox in his Velikovskianism.
Although there were some civilizations who didn’t leave any records of any but the Sun and Moon, or of the Sun, Moon, and Venus. This does not imply that they didn’t know of the others’ existence, though, but just that they didn’t consider them worth making records of.