Packet 5: Tossup 17

Note to moderator: Read answerline carefully. Scholars led by Gautama Siddha chronicled members of this profession during the Kaiyuan Era like Shi Shen and Gan De. Alfonso X of Castile’s patronage of “tables” used in this profession (-5[1])earned him the epithet (-5[1])“the wise.” (-5[1])The multi-gear Antikythera (15[2])(“an-TEE-kuh-THEE-ruh”) mechanism (15[1])was probably (-5[1])used (15[1])by members of this profession. The Almagest ("ALL-muh-jest") was expanded upon in catalogues called (15[1])Zij (“zeej”) by members of this profession (15[1])based at an institution founded by Ulugh Beg in (*) Samarkand. Armillary Spheres were used by a member of this profession who uttered “and yet it moves” during a trial on his support for heliocentrism. For 10 points, members of what profession worked in observatories? ■END■ (10[2])

ANSWER: astronomy [or astronomers; accept stargazing or observing stars; accept astrologist or astrology; accept reading the stars; prompt on mathematicians or mathematics or geometry or arithmetic by asking “what specific profession did they use math in?”; prompt on descriptions of time keeping or timekeepers with "what specific profession did they study in order to keep time?”; prompt on diviners or divination or omen tellers or omen telling or augurs or augury; prompt on navigation or navigators; prompt on sailors or sailing; prompt on science or scientist]
<History - Other, Vikram Narasimhan> | VAULT II Packet 05
= Average correct buzzpoint

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