Which civilization, past or present, has contributed more to the science of Astronomy?

Question

The details and astonishing answer will be revealed at the closing of this amswer to the winner.......KECK

Answer 1

Mayans where a neat civillization that even had a prophecy clock to go along with the their study in astronomy.

Of course this clocks stops in the year 2012 which someone believe means the end of the world or dooms day.

I'm curious as to know the answer my self....

Answer 2

It depends how you choose to measure it.

In terms of shear volume of knowledge and information, it is the present. Almost everything known in modern cosmology comes from work since 1900. And we have observe more stars, galaxies etc in a few weeks than in a century or so before 1900. This is the advantage of technology.

But without the very basic conceptual breakthroughs of the past, we would be nowhere.

Answer 3

The Chinese and Middle Eastern cultures contributed the most to astronomy - two thousand years ago. In the last hundred years, it was America and Europe who made the most discoveries.

Answer 4

Probably present and if you want to call the US a "civilization"it would be them considering the Hubble, all the other space telescopes and terrestrial telescopes and all the planetary probes. All the earlier civilizations totally screwed it up for 1500 years with the earth centric belief.

Answer 5

The Greeks did a pretty bang up job. Followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, the Babylonians.

Answer 6

I know the greeks were awfully advanced in astronomy, but I do remember that the mayans rocked it up over here and nobody really new about it until recently. That's my choice, but I don't know if it counts becasue we really just confirmed it, not necessarily learned from it. and it really didn't help their civilization much anyway.

Answer 7

Without any question, beyond any doubt or reasonable argument, it *must* be the culture that gave rise to Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Hawking, namely, modern Western Civilization.

Answer 8

The ancient Egyptians or the medieval Europeans

Answer 9

Mayans

Answer 10

"The Ethiopians were the first who invented the science of stars, and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the qualities which they conceived them to possess; and it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect state, to the Egyptians