Secrets of the Moon | Episode 01 | By the light of the Moon

[Music] far above the modern world the moon shines out like an I in the night sky it has witnessed all the stages of our evolution it holds up a mirror to the long history of mankind which may explain why we have always observed the moon marveling at its brightness and attempting to fathom in cycles both mysterious and familiar the moon has always intrigued us teaching us about the world around us and sparing us on in our quest for knowledge this is the story we are about to relate a human adventure that takes us on an incredible journey through space and time as science and mythology reveal people have always looked to the moon for answers to their questions the moon played a part in the dawning of human thought for the earliest humans it was the most visible point of reference standing out clearly against the night sky the moon is like a natural and free display of passing time in the sky measuring time in a human scale it easily using the moon as a way to measure time was one of the early man's first concerns on Bessie formulated on the most obvious measurement of time is day and night when the sun is shining you'd stay when it says it's not even that cell then in addition to that there's a natural cycle of seasons the year [Music] Naoto illusion the moon is the only tangible element for man in between the very short unit of the day and the year made up a 365 days Nolan [Music] yesterday the Sun Also orbits disappears and is reborn but its shape doesn't change or disappear for three days it's entirely different in reality it's more ordinary last the moon is the celestial body that changes the most its shape is never exactly the same not just from one season to the next but from one night to the next the moon has become the best celestial body for measuring not just passing time but time passing being always different you could say nothing new Under the Sun but always new out of the moon the moon reflects the light of the Sun viewed from the earth its face changes with each night that passes first it waxes from the slender new moon to the full moon which occurs when it's on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun then it wanes finally it swallowed up by a darkness that lasts for three days the moon takes just over 27 days to orbit the Earth it's highly regular cycle makes it an ideal time marker [Music] [Laughter] the frescoes at Lascaux they're witness to a time when humans look to the sky to help them interpret life on earth homeopath the first visible evidence that early man gazed at the sky can be seen in the alaska cave secondary school were reports we now think that the dots are stars in some cases the players represented under the oxen or even the phases of the Moon seen below the Magnificent Lascaux horse nam ki fascinated by the night sky outside man created night inside the cave he brought his own light into it not moonlight this time but his own light he painstakingly depicted that different quarters of the moon I like that interpretation of it it reveals man's fascination man's fascination with the moon provided him with the key to understanding the world around him the guns very early man may not have made any connection between different phases of the Moon all they saw was something in the sky that had a slightly different shape to the previous evening I mean gradually people began to realize that there was a length between the Sun and the moon and they then started to wonder about it on sauna the Sun and Moon have always been closely connected they are an inseparable pair raining over time and creation together through the ages mankind has tried to fathom their cycles as the archaeological site of Stonehenge bears witness it's believed to have been both an observatory and a gigantic open-air calendar lalume divvy up your very early form man confided in the news at night was because man himself is born he grows the ages he dies and perhaps he hopes will be born again it's by imagining mythological tales that ancient cultures interpreted the world they lived in from the beginning the Sun and Moon played a central part in these myths they were personified by two contrasting complementary deities in ancient Egyptian mythology Horus the Falcon God embodies the triumph of cosmic order over primal chaos his gaze embodies time his right eye is the Sun and his left eye is the moon in the course of Horus his battle with chaos his left eye is gouged out and the pieces scattered it's the god Thoth that heals and reassembles the eye which symbolizes the whole of creation it enables Horus to restore harmony on earth to help him do so Thoth the god of measurements invents the calendar to count units of time especially months which are governed by the phases of the Moon [Music] so Thoth becomes Lord of time [Music] yes five thousand years ago three cultural features that were essential for mankind were established in Mesopotamia in Leuven a new form of Agriculture astronomy and writing the three phenomena are linked because by mapping out the course of the Sun and the moon the first calendars necessary for good agricultural practices could be drawn up people could also organize the social lives there can be no social life without a calendar without a collective code that everybody follows to organize and synchronize people's lives [Music] [Applause] [Music] visit Fuji monsters some human beings obviously realized the moon had a cycle that kept coming back around regularly and they absolutely needed to establish a unit of time basically at the time they started to cultivate land because when you're growing crops you need to know when to sow and when to harvest so they had to draw up a calendar the simplest way to establish a reference is to look up at the skies to observe what stars and constellations are above in order to create a reference of dates that's how man used the moon to create months the word moon originates from the indo-european word mence meaning measure which has given us the term month whereas the Sun indicates the seasons of the year the moon measures the passage of days and months come the lunar year is 354 days long look also it's shorter than the solar years this creates a difference with the seasons so to compensate for this difference calendars that combine the Sun and the moon count the days using the moon with two years of twelve months or so and then a third year in which an extra month is added to meet the two calendars coincide [Music] the efferent sugiko various civilizations were forced to add a period which you could say is outside lunar time a timeless time Auto which became the way they readjusted lunar time the lunar months to the solar year a tentative [Music] [Music] usually look at today the calendar used all over the world is the Gregorian calendar introduced by Pope Gregory the 13th in 1582 it is used irrespective of what religion people practice it is used by the world of business by the world of telecommunications the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar lusatian for thousands of years people timed their activities to coincide with the movements of the celestial bodies they realized very early on that the rhythms of the natural world were governed by the moon whose cycles closely mirrored those of living things the way in which natural cycles are governed by the moon is best illustrated by the relationship between the moon and the tides the moon acts as a catalyst for living organisms breeding cycles [Music] men have always taken advantage of the air band flow of tides and a fertile coastal plains with their abundant biodiversity in nature we observe that animals use cues from the environment so you don't need an a direct effect of the moon on the animals you can the animals can use the information provided by the moon or the effect that the moon has on the environment like creating tides modifying the currents or also modifying lighting conditions many marine organs they synchronize their reproduction with the coming and going of the tides [Music] the breeding pattern of horseshoe crabs on the coasts of the Atlantic demonstrate how species organized their lives around lunar cycles in spring these prehistoric arthropods in a clock tells them to make the most of the very high tides by coming to mate and lay their eggs beneath the protective gaze of the moon [Music] [Applause] the horseshoe crabs are not the only wants to take advantage of the may full moon sandpipers migrate thousands of kilometers but they know exactly when and where the horseshoe crabs gather to breed the sandpipers feast greedily on the sumptuous picnic provided courtesy of the moon [Music] further inland the light of the moon affects the behavior of some animal species many predators have evolved hunting strategies based on changes in light conditions from one night to another Alliance actually that's what they do to modify their hunting strategies depending on the lighting conditions they face due to the moon that they avoid hunting during full moon and they also they time their hunt so that they have to ring the darkest hour of night that is when the Sun has set and the moon hasn't yet come out in the course of their evolution Lions have developed perfect night vision which gives them a considerable advantage over their prey [Music] so there you have a case where you have a top predator that is using the direct lighting conditions provided by the moon to adjust their hunting behavior and then maximize their hunting efficiency the moon reigns over the kingdom of death but it remains the symbol of life the promise of births to come [Music] we don't know [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] human beings are part of nature we too are influenced by the moon we appeal to the moon to look kindly on us crediting it with a wide range of powers don't do messed you didn't Tonto Fellini the moon is sometimes seen as masculine and sometimes as feminine we have a whole host of tales myths stories and narratives of all kinds that tell of the moon's relationship to men and women or to other celestial bodies in fact the moon's relationships are always linked to sexuality to vision who keeps wha everybody all over the world noticed that the moon was full that it waxed and waned and disappeared in short that it was never the same like a pregnant woman's he did Bruce what's more the female cycle lasts about 28 days and the lunar cycle also lasts 28 days so very early on the moon whatever gender was attributed to it was associated with fertility with fecundity with male-female relationships and with love in general or saw stature [Music] in Chinese mythology the moon's associations with immortality are embodied by the figure of Changi she's a mortal whose husband entrusts her with the keeping of a divine elixir of eternal life to prevent the precious fluid from being stolen she drinks the entire file becoming lighter than a feather she floats into the sky eventually landing on the moon where she has remained ever since with only a rabbit for company [Music] through the ages the moon has been worshiped for the divine knowledge it reveals rather than for itself illya party more part of the moon has been used as a meaningful symbol by practically all societies they have all created extensive symbolism to explain the moon beliefs beguiling [Music] [Music] in Sri Lanka the two-thousand-year-old perahera ritual is held in candy at the third full moon of summer to bring on the monsoon that will help the crops to grow [Music] the perahera is one of the biggest Buddhist festivals during the ceremony Buddhist sacred tooth relic is displayed to the believers in a casket borne by a large bull elephant like the moon cycle Buddha's life can be divided into three main phases birth Awakening or fullness and death which leads to Nirvana [Music] a Halfmoon shaped stone is set in front of Buddhist temples to remind believers of the importance of the moon the moon's recurring cycle mirrors other transformations it offers a lesson and constant renewal holding out the promise of transformation from seeming death to rebirth as an immortal reality is always transcendent we never know the reality of things the world always eludes us you try to interpret and decipher using different codes science is one such code poetry mythology or nothing good let me tell you mythology in the deepest sense of the word I'm not telling tour stories that take place under the moon or the Sun but seeking a real response to the question of our origins that is sure this is where do I come from what is the meaning of my life on earth what is our purpose and destiny wish you to say this you that's what mythology was not born from celestial bodies but they became part of mythology as it started to exist we contemplated stars animals plants social rules and all this created discourse in ancient Mesopotamia it's the God's in who was the chief divinity as the personification of the moon he governed the cycle of the seasons ensuring the fertility of the natural world and human beings [Music] symbolically depicted as a celestial Ark resembling the horns of a bull the crescent moon was a fertility symbol throughout the Mediterranean [Music] Lizza the ancient Arabs in the first millennium BC were highly dependent on Mesopotamia they developed a cult of moon worship the cult of the God sin particularly in or in southern Mesopotamia and subsequently in her on in northern Mesopotamia if we don't ask from there the practice spread to Babylon one where King nabonidus worshipped the moon [Music] you'll passat the Arabs who were in contact with these Mesopotamian and moon worshipers adopted the practice keepers and other holidays warned us in Islam the moon has a special role in Muslim cultures this can also be explained by the fact that when people used to travel through the desert they did so at night when of course the burning Sun had gone down and this is when the moon and the stars were the lights that guided them Stark which in turn explains why the moon is such a powerful symbol in Islam Robb declared [Music] the Islamic celebrations are entirely based on a lunar calendar of 355 days [Music] Rousseff's awoke every other year Ramadan takes place 11 days earlier as the lunar year is 11 days shorter [Music] [Music] Dudek listen as soon as Christianity started to spread this holds true for Islam man came up against gods and rights linked to God's including solar and lunar rights each time man set to work saying at times in a more or less brutal manner forget your ancient gods but as the remains are still there we're going to build often literally our churches our temples synagogues and whatever on top of the remains of ancient temples where the moon and the Sun were worshipped see button this is particularly clear in Judaism in the very first chapter of the book of Genesis the first book of the Bible where the Sun and the moon are no longer mentioned they each had names the name moon existed as did the name Sun but that was like naming the gods so they mentioned them as luminaries in action II AM II wrote into him atamora kadhal mm chelita um Fatima or accattone mm Sheila Delilah ed academia Viton Oh Tom Elohim Maria a shaman layer here Allah Eretz been enjoyed by young valina will have deal then Sydnor even the book of the apocalypse features a woman who today in the Christian tradition we associate as the virgin her mount was the Sun the stars light her path she is standing on the moon this representation in itself is a way of converting very strong symbols the Stars Sun and Moon in other words the whole sky into a mantle have yes yet the Virgin is both closest to us in her human form and at the same time closest to God this illustrates the place the moon occupies in symbolic astronomy we severally showed you [Music] Demeter Rivini mythology is full of cycles in which the hero the demigod experiences the same thing he is born he achieved certain feats he dies before sometimes after three days which is no coincidence he's reborn rises from the dead as Christ who spent three days in the tomb [Music] the moon was the first occurrence of rising from the dead is because the new moon disappears for three days and three days later it reappears so the moon which is the border between two worlds plays a role both in the world on earth where things are born live and die and in the celestial world which is eternal hence the idea of rebirth and resurrection is Unix [Music] we make up just as many myths as our ancestors we also engage in science but we carry on creating myths because we need answers to our questions or at least some answers over time legends about the moon have become distorted a wide variety of beliefs have grown up around it including some ludicrous superstitions [Music] again whilst one belief that is still perpetuated in maternity units is that there are more births during a full moon this is absolutely not backed up by science sauce people say that there are more births because of all the old traditions the old legends of the Moon linked at the moon's fertility especially in the west where there's an ancient pagan goddess who protects births nice McKee put their Genesis in many traditions women are associated with the moon's magical powers which are sometimes seen as a force for good and sometimes as evil just as the moon with its light and dark sides can symbolize either life or death [Music] the figure of the which embodies the moon's darkside Buddha power donna moonda initially in the ancient world the witch was a woman who was knowledgeable who knew many things and who helped other younger women she explained sexuality to them he was he also when these young women were pregnant and it was time for them to give birth she would help them in the Middle Ages these women were marginalized and it was around this time that the idea that witches only came out at night was born she was depicted on her broomstick at full moon flying to a witches Sabbath witches were said to be in contact with the devil as the moon comes out at night it was associated with anxiety provoking worrying and evil it followed on from there that the full moon influenced everything that was seen as negative and according to beliefs it had the strongest influence on people when it was full of McWilliams malevolent creatures such as werewolves and vampires are invariably associated with the moon and it's eerie powers like the moon they can change shape and the scientists under sheets what's also interesting is the difference between the quality of sunlight and moonlight unleashed psyched diva sunlight shows the world in sharp contrast in bright colors Helen Farben in contrast when blue lights makes the world appear slightly gloomy in various shades of gray machine and go to new [Music] allas food and everything looks a bit hazy and this allows the imagination to wonder in humans we can easily build a picture or a pattern from casual observations and we can build a causal link where none exists so when we do research when we inquire about the scientific basis of the Moon effects we have to differentiate between anecdotes correlational patterns and real effects real effects exist that they might not be as strong as we think for example the notion that the moon has a strong effect on plants furthered by the general public that the scientific evidence for it is not that strong so it doesn't mean that the moon doesn't have an effect it means that the effect is weaker so the question is in what sense the mythology has a real scientific component in what level it's a cultural phenomenon or myth that has been built on some knowledge that is not directly associated with some scientific facts the way we view the moon has changed over the centuries it has inspired science as well as mythology and beliefs I know it's originally men were astrologers or astronomers whatever you want to call them in any case they watched the sky some became experts at it whatever use they put to that they focused on observing and then measuring writing down committing to memory what they saw they did this to try and find order and consistency so they could predict what was going to happen the next day or the next or sometimes even further into the future through the heavens which they considered to be cosmic one of the key purposes of astronomy from ancient times through to the Renaissance was to produce horoscopes people wanted to predict the future of emperors in particular and of those in power using the position of the stars [Music] many depictions of the heavens show the planets and the moon traveling through 12 constellations associated with the signs of the zodiac whether before you can draw up a horoscope you have to establish planetary movements that involves observing them designing astronomical instruments and developing astronomical theories in order to produce equations and deduce positions from them it's easy to forget that astrology paved the way for astronomy the kings of ancient Babylon used early forms of horoscope to make decisions about wars and other important events lest Hannam the astronomer who wrote down the fundamentals of astrology was potala means if he wrote the Almagest he wrote about geography optics and many other things he developed theories on planetary movements and supplied the first astronomical tables his handy tables oh he also wrote the poetry part is him the Tetra Bible which is the astrologers Bible and in which he outlined and interdependence between the sky at the time of your birth and your future [Music] II don't delicious okra Ptolemy had established enough theories to be able to predict when an eclipse of the moon would take place how long it would last when an eclipse of the Sun would take place in a given location Alexandria for example where he worked whether the Eclipse would be partial both total who did them a solar eclipse occurs when the moon conceals the Sun by passing in front of it this happens every six months at the new moon in a total eclipse for a short time seven minutes at the outside the world is plunged in darkness for people who knew nothing about astronomy eclipses must have been terrifying it must have seemed as if the predictions of apocalypse and dire catastrophes were about to come true a person who claims to make the Sun disappear the next day Itamar only for the Sun to really disappear the next day as though it were under their influence no na is a good example of the link between knowledge and power Lucifer and Paul were to acknowledge that enable of making predictions and holding on to power [Music] Oh in China it was customary to warn the emperor of the Eclipse well in advance because the Chinese believed it was a dragon that ate the moon it was critical that drums echoed everywhere to chase the dragon away do maybe there were two astronomers hi and ho who worked for the Emperor an eclipse occurred that they had not predicted so high and ho was summons and had their heads cut off which goes to show that being an astronomer in ancient times could be a dangerous profession today it's not as dangerous [Music] Genaro commands are generally speaking eclipses of the Sun and the moon have always been events that were difficult for people to grasp so they understood them as going against the natural order of things which they somehow had to fit in with their picture of the world and they called upon the gods there's always a lunar eclipse a fortnight before or after a solar eclipse [Music] lunar eclipses occur tool moon when the earth is between the moon and the Sun the moon does not vanish but turns a reddish color and can be seen from an entire hemisphere of the earth to our ancestors a red moon was just as frightening as a solar eclipse but for the ancient astronomers who are able to predict lunar eclipses they were an important event to be carefully observed noticing the circular shadow that appeared on the moon before or after it turned red helped ancient scholars come to the conclusion that the earth is round delicately if so from at least the 4th century BC we knew that the earth was round and Aristotle put forward this argument in his treatise on the sky the Kyllo it was a major theory that was practically never challenged cause although science and theology advanced in tandem for centuries religious and philosophical views prevailed over a scientific vision of the cosmos the heavens were the realm of the divine and human beings had no choice but to submit to their fate early observe vision of the night sky including the moon the Sun and the day and now the planets led to the first models of the universe which at the time were centered and that the earth and this makes sense because as I restore old noted it seems that the earth is not moving at all and even if we look at the stars by eye we cannot detect any change in a position and this indicates that the earth would naturally lie at the center of the system so therefore the system would involve the earth of the center with a moon in orbit around the Earth followed by other planets and the Sun each within their own transparent crystalline spheres the astronomers and philosophies of the ancient world saw the cosmos as perfectly ordered this was the prevailing view in Greek thought Bork was for them cosmos was one of the noblest terms that could be used the heavens were cosmic by their very nature but beautiful orderly orderly let women or something under the heavens man felt almost crushed by this whole risk because he was such a tiny almost insignificant element of it all ' he bought for a very long time it was in the context of this cosmic framework that man saw himself his life the life of his entourage of his family his people his origins as well as his destiny come say destiny in this cosmogonic vision of the universe the moon was located on the boundary between Earth and the heavens iced Aristotle had claimed that the world was divided in two there was what he called the in faloona worlds in other words the world that was located between the orbits of the moon and the earth this was where the Comets the Milky Way and meteorological phenomena were believed to be located then beyond that was what Aristotle called the Supra lunar world located beyond the lunar orbit and which was incorruptible and perfect [Music] the late 7th century witnessed the beginning of the Golden Age of Islam numerous developments took place in science and the arts and Arab and Persian astronomers were able to take astronomy considerably further than their Greek predecessors but they still clung to the belief that the earth was the center of the universe they were still hemmed in by the geocentric model of astronomy for them the earth was still in the center with everything turning around it and the stars piled up as it were in an onion skin universe with spheres surrounding the earth supporting the planets nobody in ancient times the Middle Ages or the Renaissance talked about what is called quintessence nobody mentioned the structure of the crystalline spheres what were they made of what drove the planets to move around the earth nobody mentioned those things sofa astronomers had observed the heavens with the naked eye that had not stopped them taking very precise measurements using a variety of instruments to gauge the positions of the celestial bodies [Music] in the 14th century the invention of clockwork enabled astronomers to calculate the time taken by the movements of the Moon and stars with much greater accuracy [Music] Eliahu the history of thought reached a major milestone when Copernicus in 1543 the year of his death published a work entitled de revolutionibus it clearly stated that the earth had lost its status as the central celestial body this was the birth of heliocentric in other words Copernicus said that the earth and the planets revolved around the Sun yesterday it was a real revolution it shattered the ancient idea of the cosmos from then on people observe the sky not the cosmos from this period people began talking of navigating the sky in the same way that they were doing in the 17th century the seas and that was already quite a sacrilege in the 18th century astronomy added a new chapter to the story of mankind the moon was the frontier between the cosmos and the earth scholars started pointing telescopes in the direction of what was still the cosmos Galileo of course comes to mind as number 30 and 1609 being an important date he pointed his telescope at the sky and saw the moon as it is the easiest celestial object to observe from there he entered the cosmos by the border guard that is the moon he saw that the moon appear to have mountains hills ravines he moved his telescope on past the moving as it were and onto Jupiter there he saw there were moons around Jupiter which he thought was strange moons belonged to the earth that meant that Jupiter which belonged to the cosmos also has moons piecing things together from observing our moon and astronomical observation in general he shattered the concept of the cosmos [Music] stone was also cooked amusingly in 1624 a friend and admirer of Galileo Maffeo Barberini became Pope Urban 8 now that his friend was Pope Galileo could finally write whatever he wanted his reply off and in 1632 he wrote a very important work entitled dialogue concerning the two chief twirled systems in the work Galileo really let loose setting out his Copenhagen ideas that the planets revolved around the Sun tell you of course it cost him dearly and he was summoned to Rome the Inquisition imposed a far-reaching trial on him and he was sentenced to end his life in forced residents Roxy plugging me Siddall it symbolized the struggle between faith and science which was to continue long afterwards it wasn't until the 19th century that the church finally admitted that the earth revolved around the Sultanate oldest Alania although Galileo was one of the first astronomers to observe the moon through a telescope it was his contemporary Kepler who made the most important contribution to Copernicus's theory with his laws of planetary motion the main observation that led Kepler to develop the elliptical orbit model was that the observations of the moon showed fairly clearly that the orbit of the moon was sometimes faster sometimes slower based on the apparent movement of the moon around the earth Kepler namely noticed that the observances were much better fit with elliptical orbits and implementing this in the Copernicus model with the Sun the center was a much much better fit in much more successful reproduction of the observations [Music] the moon has thousands of irregularities they couldn't be found through trial and error or through observation any theory of lunar motion had to be preceded by the theory of gravity that only became possible with Newton who published his Principia in 1687 in which he addressed the question of lunar motion on deke Newton was said to be sitting under an apple tree when he saw an Apple fall he wondered why it was that the Apple fell and yet the moon which he could see in full daylight did not fall Newton wondered what the link was between the moon and the earth he thought a force must surely link the two that force is what we call gravity because of its mass the earth pulls the moon towards it but as the moon spins it tends to fly outwards like a centrifugal force so there is a balance between the centrifugal force trying to eject the moon into orbit and the force of gravity pulling the moon towards it from Newton onwards geometrician x' and mathematicians developed very high-level concrete theories of mathematics and physics in relation to the moon you will honor see that it was in the prints appear that Newton explained that we always see the same side of the Moon because it orbits the earth in 27 days and eight hours and it also spins on its own axis in 27 days and eight hours [Music] sputtered in the history of mankind mythology precedes science I'm convinced that mythology will outlive science if science were to decline one day [Music] [Music] [Music] all the people back on earth the crew of Apollo 8 as a manager that we would like to send to you in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light they was good in God divided the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the darkness he called night and the evening and the morning were the first day [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

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Rating: 4.6187177 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, PLAY_DOC_EN, science, ramadan, crescent moon, religion, beliefs, Earth, astronomy, astronomical body, natural satellite, Theia, giant impact, ocean tides, Moon and Sun, solar eclipse, Luna 2, NASA, Apollo, Moon's origin, Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11, That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind, lunar soil, Venus, Lunar calendar, Moonrise, PLAY_SCI_EN

Id: WDjJUQFJb0Y

Length: 51min 18sec (3078 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 24 2019