News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on When did the First Peoples arrive in America?. Parent comment

Re:When did the First Peoples arrive in America? by thaumasiotes on Saturday December 31, 2022 @04:40PM (#34201054)
Historical records from the year 1054 are available (and are of course the reason we date the nebula to "1054" rather than "the eleventh century"). You can just go see what people of the time thought.

Wikipedia doesn't quote the records associated with 1054, but does quote the record of a supernova in the year 185:

> In the 2nd year of the epoch Zhongping [中平], the 10th month, on the day Guihai [癸亥] [December 7, Year 185], a 'guest star' appeared in the middle of the Southern Gate [南門] [an asterism consisting of ε Centauri and α Centauri], The size was half a bamboo mat. It displayed various colors, both pleasing and otherwise. It gradually lessened. In the 6th month of the succeeding year it disappeared.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_185 )

What people thought appears to have been "sometimes there are new stars, but they go away again".

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When did the First Peoples arrive in America? by moloch-hai on Saturday December 31, 2022 @06:41PM (#34201921)
Anyway people transcribing what they wrote thought that. A very great deal of such Chinese history was sketchily paraphrased when copying to newer media.

And it tells us nothing of what people on other continents thought. The null hypothesis would be that it varied.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When did the First Peoples arrive in America? by thaumasiotes on Sunday January 01, 2023 @04:18AM (#34204907)
The null hypothesis for a celestial phenomenon like this is that it was viewed as an omen. But since it is not obviously good or bad and isn't responsive to anything on Earth, you'd expect it to be viewed as support for whatever anyone already believed. Omens that appear during unpopular reigns are bad omens. Omens that appear during popular reigns are good omens.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When did the First Peoples arrive in America? by heavyset_go on Saturday December 31, 2022 @07:21PM (#34202197)
Throughout different periods, there were cultures in the Americas that found intense spiritual and political significance in astronomy.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When did the First Peoples arrive in America? by Keysh on Sunday January 01, 2023 @02:02AM (#34204273)
> Wikipedia doesn't quote the records associated with 1054

Wait, what? The Wikipedia article on SN 1054 has an extensive discussion of the Chinese records (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054#Chinese_astronomy), as well as Japanese records and the Arabic account of Ibn Butlan.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When did the First Peoples arrive in America? by thaumasiotes on Monday January 02, 2023 @03:54AM (#34215842)
My mistake.
[ Parent | on HN ]