The greatest influence on western astronomy comes from ancient Greece. Greek philosophers were the first to apply mathematics to attempt to understand the universe more deeply than for simple predictive purposes. Although the civilization of ancient Greece declined, the Greek ideas that were passed to Indian and Asian colonies were subsequently adopted by Islamic scholars, and were later introduced into Europe by Arab invaders in the fifteenth century Table gives a listing of the Greek alphabet. These letters note scientific quantities and are used in the naming of stars.
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