Talk:Taurus (constellation)
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What galaxy is Taurus in? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wiwaxia (talk • contribs) 01:31, 4 September 2005.
- Taurus is an asterism and therefore doesn't live in a galaxy as such. However, most of the components of the constellation are close enough to be in the Milky Way Ian Cairns 01:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] deleted section
I deleted the following section as garbage. Maybe someone can salvage something?
- Value of Taurus in Language
- In the 2005 edition of Sky Publishing's annual sky calendar and almanac, there was a sizable article devoted to multiple aspects of the Europa/Taurus myth and its applications to astronomy. In this article the author states that Taurus was the origin of the Phoenician letter aleph, from which descended the initial letter of other semitic alphabets. Aleph, in Phoenician, represents an ox, and does, indeed, have a shape not dissimilar to that of the constellation Taurus. The Greek letter alpha is also derived from aleph, but rotates the symbol so it opens downward. If this is the case, then Taurus is unique as the only constellation that is also a letter.
- In a much earlier publication, the Planetarian's Guide to Greek Constellations, Paul M. Bryant says instead that Taurus was represented in Egypt with a "T" shaped hieroglyph, and that this became the Greek letter Tau.
It's nonsensical to say that a constellation is the origin of a letter. Perhaps a hieroglyph representing Taurus was the origin of the letter, but without any reason to believe that's the case, this doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. kwami 10:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps I can offer some enlightenment. The author of the article was Guy Otwell, who produces the annual almanacs for Sky Publishing and their magazing Sky and Telescope, and has for several decades. He does propose that the derivation of aleph is from the Egyptian heiroglyph for "bull," "ox" and the constellation of Taurus, and that this mimics the "sideways A" shape of the constellation. He suggests the reason behind the adoption of this symbol for the initial letter of the alefbet was due to the fact that, at the time, (the ancient, larger) Taurus was the site of the vernal equinox and, effectively, was also the start of the year. John P. Hughes, in an article entitled "Langauges and Writing" (which I have reproduced in Language: Readings in Language and Culture, Clarke, et al. 705) correlates part of this connection, stating that the name "alef" is descended from "alep" the ancient semitic word for bull and that the symbol is a simplication of an ideogrammatical representation of a bull. Otwell's theory thus does provide a rather sensible explaination for why this sound would be placed at the start of the alefbet, especially over the Egyptian heiroglyph that already had the phonetic value of the glottal stop (Hughes suggests it was a different one, at least). Otwell himself wrote a paper on the subject. I tried to find it online, but it doesn't seem to be publicly available anywhere, or at my university library. I'll get the citation information if anyone would like to search for the original copy.
If someone were to make modifications to the original section, to include the more accurate information, as well as emphasize it is a theory (which hardly prevents it from being encyclopedic information--or else wikipedia and paper-bound encyclopedia would find themselves rather short of content) it would, to me, justify replacement in the article. It may, perhaps, only deserve a very brief mention in the Taurus article, perhaps better fitting in the article on aleph. I'll certainly spend some time over the next few days to see if we can find more sources to verify this, ideally internet ones so that users can have the (always desirable) primary source documents used to create the article at their disposal for personal critique. - User:QuantumDriver
- No, the concept of connecting taurus to aleph is simply too loony! OK, there is a connection: those inventing aleph, sometimes saw bulls - those inventing the constellation taurus, sometimes saw bulls. But that's the real raisin, and it's kind of trivial and nonsential. Rursus 20:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
A quick google search reveals piles and piles of pages mentioning this connection. As might be expected most of these pages are on astrology and mysticism (neither of which I am a great fan of), due to the fact it deals with a zodiacal constellation and a letter of the Hebrew alephbet. Admittedly, this connection has a rather astrological twinge to it in not being related to the hard science of astronomy, they do at least corroborate it and support that it is encyclopedic information, worthy of inclusion. This isn't necessarily not a reason to keep it out of what probably should be (and is not completely) an astronomy article, since we wouldn't be making any claims of mysticism or astrology in the article and would simply be interested in showing the theory behind this connection, one which has a daily impact in our lives (several times a day, even, how often have I typed aleph's diminutive Latin descendant here?). If no one else wants to take it up, I plan to re-work this into the article. - User:QuantumDriver
- It is commonly believed, though by no means yet demonstrated, that the letter ’alp A was derived from a hieroglyph (glyph F1
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) representing a bull's head. However, this may be the first letter because the bull was important to pastoral Semitic peoples, not because Taurus was. Or it may be due to some ABC rhyme used to memorize the alphabet. It certainly makes sense that the first zodiacal sign of the year could be the first letter of the alphabet, but no matter which letter were first, people would imagine some reason why it was so priveledged. If it were the letter hillul E, which means 'jubilation', people would argue this was a forerunner of Semitic monotheism; if it were šimš S, which meant 'sun', people would argue it reflected Egyptian sun worship. Etc etc etc. Besides, in the constellation Taurus the bull has his head lowered so that his horns point forward; in the oldest alphabetic inscriptions from Wadi el-Ħôl, the head is level and the horns point back. As for the sound values, recent reconstructions don't have any of the letters taking their values from Egyptian. They were all given Semitic names. For example, kapp K is supposed to come from the hieroglyph for 'hand', which in Egyptian was d or drt. So the fact that Egyptian
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didn't represent a glottal stop is meaningless. I think that an editorial in Sky and Telescope may be worth a brief mention as fun speculation, but we shouldn't give the impression that there is any good reason to believe it. kwami 10:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Proposed move
Someone proposed a move based upon the assumption everything else on the taurus page was named from the constellation. However I would like to see move evidence for this. For example:
- Taurus Mountains, located in northern Syria/southern Turkey
We can assume the name arose from the Turkish toros. However whether the word Taurus was used because of the use of Taurus for the constellation in English or perhaps from taurus from Latin is not particular clear. Even if the name was chosed because of the use of the word Taurus for the constellation, the mountains surely have just as much right to the name as the constellation as it originated from the Turkish word whyever that particular word was chosen.
- Bos taurus, a species of cattle
Perhaps the constellation had something to do with it but it's just as likely (in fact more so IMHO) that it was used largely indepedently from latin
- Montes Taurus, a Lunar mountain range.
Since this name was chosen from the above mountain range, the same arguments apply.
In conclusion, I don't see any real evidence that the constellation should somehow be considered as the true 'owner' of the name Nil Einne 11:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
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- No solid motivation, moved disambiog page back to original page, so that the old situation has been restored. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 02:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] discrepancy:English wiki versus Français wiki
ω² 50 Omega-2 Tauri 4.93 291 in English one (291 distance in light year), and:
ω2 Tau 4,93 2,64 94 A3m (94 is distance in light year) in french one. How is it possible? are diferent measures? measures not homogeneus? error? Pérez 04:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
- I believe this is fixed now; i think the english one was wrong. Mlm42 21:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Shur
I didn't propose the merge, but I agree with it. This article should be merged here, or, at least, someone with some knowledge should deal with it. Also, the article contradicts the title. Thanks! J Milburn 18:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] How did Taurus look 14'500 BC??
The article very boldly says:
- The identification of the constellation of Taurus as a bull may be very old. Michael Rappenglück of the University of Münich believes that Taurus is represented in the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux.[1] The paintings are some 16,500 years old. One of the painted bulls is near a cluster of dots that looks like the Pleiades, and which is the correct position over its shoulder to be that asterism.[2] ...
Considering proper motion of stars, this sounds to be in conflict with physics. As much as I remember, the big dipper looked like a tea spoon with broken handle 10'000 years ago! Has anyone seriously tried to compute what Taurus looked like 14'500 BC?! Rursus 20:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
- As much as I could get info on http://www.infis.org/, this guy Michael Rappenglück doesn't even seem to be aware of the proper motions of stars – he seems to be aware of the precession and the movement of the celestial pole, but nothing about star movements. Rursus 20:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
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- Autodebunk: Rappenglück is very well aware of the proper motions! Therefore I redraw all my doubts ... for now! Rursus 21:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
