Virginia Trimble
Astronomer and historian of astronomy, UC Irvine
- Field
- Astronomy; history of astronomy
- Education
- BA UCLA 1964; PhD Caltech 1968
- Position
- Professor emerita of physics and astronomy, University of California, Irvine
- Pyramid work
- 1964 star-shaft study with Alexander Badawy
An American astronomer who, as a student in 1964, calculated with Alexander Badawy where the Great Pyramid's shafts pointed in the sky.
What is Virginia Trimble known for?
Virginia Trimble is an American astronomer who has been on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine since 1971. She has written hundreds of papers on stars, galaxies and the history of astronomy, and served as a vice president of the International Astronomical Union and the American Astronomical Society.
While an undergraduate at UCLA she worked with the Egyptologist Alexander Badawy on the narrow shafts that lead out of the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid. Their 1964 papers argued that, around the time of construction, the northern shaft pointed toward the circumpolar stars and the southern shaft toward the belt of Orion, linking the shafts to the king's journey to the stars described in the Pyramid Texts. The idea was later taken up and extended by Robert Bauval and others.
Co-author of the 1964 argument that the Great Pyramid's shafts aimed at the circumpolar stars and Orion.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeThe Imperishable Stars
- PersonAlexander Badawy
Sources
- Wikipedia, 'Virginia Trimble'Reference
- Badawy, 'The Stellar Destiny of Pharaoh and the So-called Air-shafts of Cheops' Pyramid', MIO 10 (1964), Giza Archives (Harvard)Primary text
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