arXiv subjects

Alejandro Gangui

Publications and source records attributed to Alejandro Gangui.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Archaeoastronomical study of Christian churches in Fuerteventura

We present an archaeoastronomical study of the orientations of the colonial Christian churches on the island of Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, Spain, mostly built from the period of the Norman conquest in the 15th century to the 19th century. Our goal is to analyze the possible astronomical influence on the orientation of these churches. Preliminary results suggest that the vast majority of the island's religious constructions have their axes oriented within the solar range, between the extreme azimuths of the annual movement of the Sun as it crosses the local horizon. This differs from what was found on the islands of Lanzarote and La Gomera (also in the Canaries) previously studied.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2021

Cuando la ortodoxia no es lo más relevante: el paisaje de La Gomera y la orientación de sus iglesias

We present a study of the relationship between astronomy and landscape centered on the orientation of Christian churches of the island of La Gomera, located in the Canary Archipelago. The fieldwork consisted of measuring the precise coordinates of 38 churches, which represents almost all of the island's religious constructions, which has an area of approximately 370 km2. For each church, we measured the azimuth and the angular height of the horizon taken in the direction towards which the altar of each temple points. The data obtained were corroborated with digital terrain models frequently used in archaeoastronomical studies. Finally, for the study of the sample, various analyzes were carried out: statistical, calendarical and orographic, trying to find clues that would allow us to understand the pattern of orientations found. From this analysis, we can infer that in some places the canonical tradition of orienting Christian temples in the solar range was respected. Also, it is possible that a few constructions were oriented with imitation patterns of the aborigine cult, especially in solstitial directions. However, we find that the orientation of the majority of the churches is towards the northeast and, in the absence of a better justification, we think that reason should be sought more in the terrestrial landscape than in the celestial one. Judging by the way in which several small groups of temples are distributed, we estimate this unusual pattern of global orientations is motivated by the particular orography of the island. A significant proportion of churches seems to adapt to the characteristics of their sites, orienting themselves according to the numerous geographical features where they are located. These results allow us to conjecture that the known "abrupt nature" of La Gomera is perhaps the main reason for the particular pattern of orientations of its worship sanctuaries.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2020

On tauroctonies and stars: Mithras and the life of an image

A hero or a god, wearing an oriental garb and a Phrygian cap, presses his body on that of a bull to subdue it. With his flexed knee he presses the back of the animal and holds its head with his left hand, while with his right hand he stabs a dagger into the neck of the beast. Referring to this representation of the sacrifice of the bull, or tauroctony, Fritz Saxl once wrote that he could not imagine another case in which the birth of an image could be observed with such precision. Although the complete iconography of the Mithras cult varies substantially from one sanctuary to another, the tauroctony, an element always present in all temples, is considered key to its ideology. This image was not neglected by Aby Warburg and was reproduced in abundance in Panel 8 on the Ascension towards the Sun in his Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. In this work we propose to make a journey through the life of this image that, very early on, was related to the constellations, to the great circles of the celestial sphere and to certain singular moments of the seasonal cycle. We will conclude with a critical analysis of recent speculations that bring into play subtle aspects of the movement of the sky, driven by a powerful god who resided beyond the stars, and relate them to the symbolic death of the bull.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2020

La polémica del multiverso

This paper offers a synthesis of the positions in the literature regarding controversies about the multiverse. After reviewing some simple elements of modern cosmology and its observational limitations, we will present the history of the ideas that led, first, to the proposal of the anthropic principle and, years later, to the possible existence of causally disconnected domains, eventually endowed with their own laws and fundamental constants, not all compatible with the existence of observers, which were globally baptized with the confusing name of parallel universes or multiverse.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2020

The development of a utopian city? Comparing land- and skyscapes in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and San Cristobal de la Laguna

We discuss the peculiar planning of the city of San Cristobal de La Laguna, in the Canary Island of Tenerife (Spain), when compared to the nearby and essentially contemporary Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which served as a maritime port of the former city. For this we review our previous study of the exact spatial orientation of twenty-one historic Christian churches currently existing in the old part of La Laguna, which we compare with the analysis of six similar buildings located in Santa Cruz, and presented here for the first time. In both cities, we take the spatial orientation of historic churches as good indicators of the original layout of the respective urban lattices. Although we find a clear orientation pattern for La Laguna, which singles out an absolute-value astronomical declination slightly below 20 degrees, pointing to a preferred date close to the July 25th feast-day of San Cristobal de Licia, in the case of Santa Cruz this trend is not followed. On the contrary, the pattern we find for Santa Cruz, within the uncertainties due to the low statistics, and apart from one equinoctial and one solstitial oriented churches, is consistent with an orographic orientation within the canonic limits of sunrise. This result highlights the uniqueness of the city of La Laguna, and supports the idea suggesting its deliberate planning in the early 16th century.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2020

Urban Planning in the First Unfortified Spanish Colonial Town: The orientation of the historic churches of San Cristobal de La Laguna

The city of San Cristobal de La Laguna in the Canary Island of Tenerife (Spain) has an exceptional value due to the original conception of its plan. It is an urban system in a grid, outlined by straight streets that form squares, its layout being the first case of an unfortified colonial city with a regular plan in the overseas European expansion. It constitutes a historical example of the so-called "Town of Peace", the archetype of a city-republic in a new land that employed its own natural boundaries to delimit and defend itself. Founded in 1496, the historical centre of the old city was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. We analyse the exact spatial orientation of twenty-one historic Christian churches currently existing in the old part of La Laguna which we take as a good indicator of the original layout of the urban lattice. We find a clear orientation pattern that, if correlated with the rising or setting Sun, singles out an absolute-value astronomical declination slightly below 20 degrees, which, within the margin of error of our study, might be associated with the July 25th feast-day of San Cristobal de Licia, the saint to whom the town was originally dedicated. We also discuss at some length some recent proposals which invoke somewhat far-fetched hypotheses for the planimetry of the old city and finish up with some comments on one of its outstanding features, namely its Latin-cross structure, which is apparent in the combined layout of some of its most emblematic churches.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2020

Archaeoastronomical study of the historic churches of La Gomera

In this paper we discuss the importance of studying the orientation of ancient Christian churches, as a complement to the historical and cultural research of the temples. We present preliminary results of the analysis of the precise spatial orientation of 38 colonial churches located on the Canary Island of La Gomera (Spain). The sample suggests that, although several churches have a canonical orientation within the solar range, a large proportion of them follow a pattern of orientations that is compatible with the steep orography of the island and, therefore, contrasts with the prescriptions contained in the texts of the early Christian writers.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2019

La orientación de las iglesias andinas de la región de Arica y Parinacota, Chile: una aproximación arqueoastronómica

The heritage Andean churches of Arica and Parinacota are representative of the majority of Christian churches in the region. Judging by their architecture, materiality and decoration, they have many features in common and are faithful to the intentions of their original builders. However, their geographical locations and the landscape that surrounds these churches show specific features for each of them. In particular, the orientation of the main axes (towards the altar of the churches) shows some diversity. In this extended area, with little attention from parish priests, the local Aymara culture, with its own worldview, surely engaged in a dialogue with the Western tradition in order to design and build the Indian Reductions. In this paper we present the results obtained from the analysis of the precise spatial orientations of all the cataloged churches, employing the tools of archaeoastronomy, as a complement to the architectural, historical and cultural research of the temples. We also comment briefly on some progress that we hope to make in neighboring areas to the region here studied, which include a large number of very old temples and are part, along with the churches here considered, of a common and widespread cultural koine.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2019

Scientific relations between Uruguay and Argentina in the 1920s: the exact sciences

The scientific career of Uruguayan theoretical physicist Enrique Loedel Palumbo in Argentina illustrates the intense intellectual exchange that existed between these neighboring countries in the first third of the twentieth century. In this paper we briefly discuss the scientific training of this scientist in Uruguay, his subsequent incorporation to the Institute of Physics of La Plata, in Buenos Aires, and his first steps in research under the tutelage of German professor Richard Gans.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2019

Paisaje celeste y arqueoastronomía: las iglesias históricas como indicadores de la planimetría de una ciudad ideal

According to popular tradition, the Canarian city of San Cristobal de La Laguna, a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1999, emerged in the early sixteenth century with a novel organization, in line with a new peaceful social order inspired by the religious doctrine of the millennium and its expression through urban design [...] In this paper we briefly discuss some details of these ideas, which propose a planned geometric origin for the city, and the original sources on which they are based. We then look for other indications that in a simpler way might explain some of the notable characteristics of the order and design of La Laguna, where over time a model of traditional Canarian architecture was installed that, during the 17th century, was populated with civil and religious constructions (churches, chapels and convents) with notable creations in carpentry of Mudejar origin, for example coming from the lower Andalusia. To conclude, we show our precise analysis of the orientation of almost all the historical churches and chapels of the city, taken together as an indicator of its planimetry. This study employs the usual tools of archaeoastronomy as a complement to the historical and cultural research of religious constructions. We will see then that a new -- and simpler -- interpretation of the spatial distribution of the city is possible.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2019

Archaeoastronomy in northern Chile: Andean churches of the Arica and Parinacota region

We present the results obtained from the analysis of the precise spatial orientations of almost forty old colonial Christian churches located in the Arica and Parinacota region. This is an extended and difficult to travel area that received little attention from parish priests, and where one might expect some dialogue to have taken place between the Western tradition and the local Aymara culture in regard to the design and construction of temples. We also briefly comment on our plans to explore neighboring areas to the region here studied, which include many additional historical constructions that share similar cultural traditions.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2018

On times and shadows: the observational analemma

The observation that the shadows of objects change during the course of the day and also for a fixed time during a year led curious minds to realize that the Sun could be used as a timekeeper. However, the daily motion of the Sun has some subtleties, for example, with regards to the precise time at which it crosses the meridian near noon. When the Sun is on the meridian, a clock is used to ascertain this time and a vertical stick determines the angle the Sun is above the horizon. These two measurements lead to the construction of a diagram (called an analemma) as an extremely useful resource for the teaching of astronomy. In this paper we report on the construction of this diagram from roughly weekly observations during more than a year.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2018

Relativity in Argentine culture in the early twentieth century

In previous works we have considered various aspects of the reception of the theories of Albert Einstein in our country. In particular, we discussed the impact of his visit to Argentina in 1925, and the precise content of the conferences and scientific publications that Einstein communicated while he was here. We have also discussed, critically, different documents on topics related to the theory of relativity published in the country during the first decades of the last century, in which the technical level was extremely varied. Finally, we have dealt with a forgotten document, which Einstein prepared for his visit but, once in the country, thought it convenient not to communicate. In the present work, which is part of that same line of research, we propose to consider the scientific, cultural and pedagogical career of Enrique Loedel Palumbo (1901-1962), who was one of the main local actors during Einstein's visit to Argentina. He was also one of the founders of the research on relativity issues in the Rio de la Plata. In addition to his strictly scientific interests, Loedel Palumbo took seriously the pedagogy of science and became interested in philosophical, cultural and artistic problems of his time.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2018

Un enfoque de enseñanza de la Astronomía: Algunas consideraciones epistemológicas y didácticas

In order to guide teaching practices in Initial and Primary Education (IPE) level, it seems fundamental to start with an epistemological and didactic analysis of the programmatic content of the Knowledge of Nature area in the curriculum currently in force in Uruguay. In this work we briefly discuss the astronomical contents prescribed in the Program of IPE, year 2008, in order to provide teachers with some "reading keys" that might translate into possible guidelines for the design, implementation and evaluation of teaching sequences that address these contents.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2018

Archaeoastronomical study of Andean temples in Arica and Parinacota, Chile

After a historical and cultural overview of the "Indian republic", the Andean religiosity and the churches of the highlands of Arica, we detail our archaeoastronomical studies on the orientations of the Andean Christian churches in the region of Arica and Parinacota, and analyze some preliminary results. We conclude with a brief discussion on the patterns of orientation found in our measurements and on their possible causes.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2017

On the orientation of the historic churches of Lanzarote: when human necessity dominates over canonical prescriptions

We present the analysis of the measured orientations of 30 churches of the island of Lanzarote, in the Canarian archipelago, built prior to 1810, as well as a few buildings of later times, which represent a nearly complete sample of all the island's Christian sanctuaries. Our study indicates that a definite orientation pattern was followed on the island but, unlike what is often found in most of the Christian world, it has two interpretations. On the one hand, the representative orientation to the east (or west) is present. However, the sample has also a marked orientation towards north-northeast which is, as far as we know, a pattern exclusive to Lanzarote. We discuss the reasons for this pattern and suggest that one possible explanation could be a rather prosaic one, namely, that sometimes needs of everyday life are more relevant than --and push individuals to make decisions at odds with-- religious beliefs. This work is the beginning of the first systematic archaeoastronomical study ever conducted with old churches in the Canary Islands [abridged].

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2017

Einstein en la Argentina: el impacto cientifico de su visita

We present a brief review of the impact that Albert Einstein's visit to Argentina had on the scientific community and on the general public. Among other particularities, his visit was, at a certain point, somewhat disconcerting: not only because of the complexity of his ideas, but also because of his appearance, which did not fit with the image of the wise visitor firmly seated in the minds of his interlocutors. His openness and tendency to ironize, especially in his first interviews with the press, first disorientated journalists and later also some members of his intellectual audience. Einstein, then, forced a revision of both the image of the wise man and that of spacetime.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2016

The orientation as a signature of cultural identity: The historic churches of Lanzarote

The orientation of Christian churches is a well-known distinctive feature of their architecture. There is a general tendency to align their apses in the solar range, favoring orientations close to the east (astronomical equinox), although the alignments in the opposite direction, namely, with the apse towards the west, are not unusual. The case of the churches built in northwest Africa before the arrival of Islam is paradigmatic in this regard, and may reflect earlier traditions. The Canary Islands is the western end of this North African cultural koine, so we thought it would be relevant to study a compact set of old churches in one of the islands of the archipelago, choosing to start our project with Lanzarote. We have measured the orientation of a total of 30 churches built prior to 1810, as well as a few buildings of later times, nearly a complete sample of all the island Christian sanctuaries. The analysis of this sample indicates that a definite orientation pattern was followed on the island but, unlike the standard one often found in most of the Christian world, this prototype is twofold. On the one hand, the representative orientation to the east (or west) is present. However, the sample has also a marked orientation towards the north-northeast, which is as far as we know a pattern exclusive of Lanzarote. We analyze the reasons for this rule and suggest that one possible explanation could be a rather prosaic one, namely, that sometimes earthly needs are more relevant than religious beliefs.

physics.hist-ph↗