Talk:Taurus (constellation)

Location
What galaxy is Taurus in? —Preceding unsigned comment 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)
 * The preferred link is now asterism ( asterism ) as asterism points to a disambig page. Paddles 14:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * What?? Taurus is not an asterism, and it's in Milky Way, generally, of course!? Said: Rursus 20:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

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 ) 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   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)

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)
 * 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)
 * The Taurus Mountains and cattle and the Roman figures are certainly just separate derivations from Latin (not Turkish, which is transliterating the Latin name). That has no bearing on "ownership". This page should be moved to Taurus because (apart from the now-discontinued car) this is the that most people are looking for when they look for "Taurus". —  Llywelyn II   02:26, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

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)

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)

I am wondering if the Sumerian name of this constellation should also be added. If I remember correctly, this was GUD.AN.NA ("Bull of Heaven"). Pictonon (talk) 01:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

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. 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. ...

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)


 * 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)


 * I've temporarily mislaid the print-out of a paper (probably by Rappenglück) I have on this subject, but I recall that the paintings-Taurus identifications rested not only on one Lascaux painting's inclusion of the Pleiades (on a forequarters-only depiction much like the usual visualisation of the constellation), but also on another painting (possibly in a different cave) seeming to represent correctly the Hyades as they would have been allowing for their proper motions between then and now. Having studied the motion of the latter cluster (which enables its distance to be calculated), on a university Astronomy course in the 1970s I was greatly struck by this.
 * [NB: for non-astronomers reading this, the Hyades is an open star cluster similar to and closer to the Sun than the Pleiades, though less prominent, which forms the 'face' of the bull in the constellation of Taurus.]
 * The prehistoric cattle concerned (Aurochs) are depicted with a white, black-spotted face in several cave paintings. One could argue that the apparent spot-star correspondances on one of them could be coincidental; one could also surmise that the fortuitious resemblance between the actual animals and the appearance of the celestial asterism led to the early 'recognition' of this constellation. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 05:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Unsourced statement
I removed the following unsourced statement from the paragraph on Greek mythology because I could find nothing to confirm it:
 * The tale informs the names of constellations since it is necessary to traverse the area of sky known as the Sea to reach it.

&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Indian mythology
A reference is needed for the following:
 * In Indian mythology and astronomy Taurus is known as Brisha meaning bull.

Regards, RJH (talk) 01:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems to be called Vṛṣabha (Vrishabha), meaning bull. Aldebaran is called Rohinī, meaning "the red one", which forms one of the Nakshatra, or lunar mansions. The latter is also called brāhmī. RJH (talk)

File:Sidney Hall - Urania's Mirror - Taurus.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Sidney Hall - Urania's Mirror - Taurus.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on May 21, 2016. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2016-05-21. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 02:20, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Coincidence?
The name of Taurus mountains comes from semitic root for mountain (Tura). Is it a coincidence that now both are written Taurus? Aminabzz (talk) 17:39, 14 December 2023 (UTC)