Understanding the Radiant Sun: The Unknown and the Unknowable in an Example of Scientific Approach

Abstract

Ramanath Cowsik From the beginning of time, all living things have been influenced by the radiant light and heat of the Sun and its periodic motion across the sky, which gives rise to day and night and the seasons. Also, from the very early days, the Sun, Moon and the stars stimulated the physical, intellectual and spiritual growth of humans. Accordingly, humans charted their movements, meditated upon their nature and their relationship to the world in which we live. That struggle in the past was frequently one of making the unknown nature of the Sun, the Moon, and the stars better known. Astrology, for example, sought to map the relationship of the stars and planets to human life in such a way that at least some of the perplexities of the unknown (of the future, for example) might be removed. The advance of science suggested that that kind of unknown...