Download or read book British University Observatories 1772 1939 written by Roger Hutchins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British University Observatories fills a gap in the historiography of British astronomy by offering the histories of observatories identified as a group by their shared characteristics. The first full histories of the Oxford and Cambridge observatories are here central to an explanatory history of each of the six that undertook research before World War II - Oxford, Dunsink, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow and London. Each struggled to evolve in the middle ground between the royal observatories and those of the 'Grand Amateurs' in the nineteenth century. Fundamental issues are how and why astronomy came into the universities, how research was reconciled with teaching, lack of endowment, and response to the challenge of astrophysics. One organizing theme is the central importance of the individual professor-directors in determining the fortunes of these observatories, the community of assistants, and their role in institutional politics sometimes of the murkiest kind, patronage networks and discipline shaping coteries. The use of many primary sources illustrates personal motivations and experience. This book will intrigue anyone interested in the history of astronomy, of telescopes, of scientific institutions, and of the history of universities. The history of each individual observatory can easily be followed from foundation to 1939, or compared to experience elsewhere across the period. Astronomy is competitive and international, and the British experience is contextualised by comparison for the first time to those in Germany, France, Italy and the USA.

Download or read book Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science 1840 1910 written by Lee T. Macdonald and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-08-31 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kew Observatory was originally built in 1769 for King George III, a keen amateur astronomer, so that he could observe the transit of Venus. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was a world-leading center for four major sciences: geomagnetism, meteorology, solar physics, and standardization. Long before government cutbacks forced its closure in 1980, the observatory was run by both major bodies responsible for the management of science in Britain: first the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and then, from 1871, the Royal Society. Kew Observatory influenced and was influenced by many of the larger developments in the physical sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century, while many of the major figures involved were in some way affiliated with Kew. Lee T. Macdonald explores the extraordinary story of this important scientific institution as it rose to prominence during the Victorian era. His book offers fresh new insights into key historical issues in nineteenth-century science: the patronage of science; relations between science and government; the evolution of the observatory sciences; and the origins and early years of the National Physical Laboratory, once an extension of Kew and now the largest applied physics organization in the United Kingdom.

Download or read book Reflections on the Astronomy of Glasgow written by David Clarke and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2013-06-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engrossing and entertaining scientific history includes the story of Glasgow's 'Big Bang' of 1863, the controversy over 'Astronomer Royal for Scotland' and a historical survey of the eight observatories that once populated Glasgow.

Download or read book Mathematics in Victorian Britain written by Raymond Flood and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a foreword by Adam Hart-Davis, this book constitutes perhaps the first general survey of the mathematics of the Victorian period. It charts the institutional development of mathematics as a profession, as well as exploring the numerous innovations made during this time, many of which are still familiar today.

Download or read book Astronomers as Diplomats written by Thierry Montmerle and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-07-08 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book illuminates a few highly significant events in history in which astronomers have helped keep contacts between astronomers of different states in moments of international political tensions or even crises. The chapters, written by 20 international authors, focus on four periods where astronomers were particularly active in international relations: 1. The WWI period, the epoch of the creation of the IAU, in the context of the simultaneous creation of other scientific unions. The book also singles out the important role of A.S. Eddington and his network “across forbidden borders”. 2. The Cold war period and its consequences, when several countries were divided between opposite blocs. “The China crisis” is told here from different viewpoints by Chinese astronomers, both from the mainland and from Taiwan, in parallel with the evolution of astronomy in South and North Korea. Germany’s twisted path in its membership of the IAU, from its admission in 1951 to its reunification in 1991 is shown as another example. 3. The book then highlights a third period, when radio astronomers, in particular, were very active in “building bridges” between East and West. It also tells the history of how the apparently innocuous issue of the “lunar nomenclature” became extremely sensitive. The part ends on two chapters on Russian robotic missions and lunar surface features as well on the Russian participation in the “International Virtual Observatory” project. 4. The fourth part reports for the first time on the “hidden story” of the relations between the IAU and the United Nations after the “Moon race” when the United Nations decided to challenge the IAU’s authority on “extraterrestrial names”. The final chapter reviews how twenty years later UNESCO and the IAU had become strong partners in the difficult, but highly successful organization of the International Year of Astronomy (2002-2009), and of the “Astronomy and World Heritage” intitiative (2008).

Download or read book William Herschel Discoverer of the Deep Sky written by Wolfgang Steinicke and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book describes the observational work of William and Caroline Herschel. It focuses on deep-sky objects, observed 1774-1817. Most were discovered by William in the monumental sweep campaign (1783-1802), assisted by his talented sister. 2500 objects were published in three catalogues. The study of the sky from southern England also concerned double stars and the Solar System, yielding the Uranus discovery in 1781. But William Herschel was much more than a mere observer. He built large reflectors, developed new methods and thought about the nature and evolution of cosmic objects and the structure of the Milky Way. He was an extremely influential astronomer and had a worthy successor, his son John.

Download or read book Wiliam Herschel written by Wolfgang Steinicke and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-10-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book describes the observational work of William and Caroline Herschel. It focuses on deep-sky objects, observed 1774-1817. Most were discovered by William in the monumental sweep campaign (1783-1802), assisted by his talented sister. 2500 objects were published in three catalogues. The study of the sky from southern England also concerned double stars and the Solar System, yielding the Uranus discovery in 1781. But William Herschel was much more than a mere observer. He built large reflectors, developed new methods and thought about the nature and evolution of cosmic objects and the structure of the Milky Way. He was an extremely influential astronomer and had a worthy successor, his son John.

Download or read book History of Universities written by Mordechai Feingold and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains the customary mix of learned articles, book reviews, conference reports and bibliographical information, which makes this publication useful for the historian of higher education. Subjects covered in this volume include: The Viterban Stadium of the 16th century; Scholarly reputations and international prestige; and The Netherlands, William Carstares, and the reform of Edinburgh University, 1690-1715.

Download or read book Sciences in the Universities of Europe Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries written by Ana Simões and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on sciences in the universities of Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the chapters in it provide an overview, mostly from the point of view of the history of science, of the different ways universities dealt with the institutionalization of science teaching and research. A useful book for understanding the deep changes that universities were undergoing in the last years of the 20th century. The book is organized around four central themes: 1) Universities in the longue durée; 2) Universities in diverse political contexts; 3) Universities and academic research; 4) Universities and discipline formation. The book is addressed at a broad readership which includes scholars and researchers in the field of General History, Cultural History, History of Universities, History of Education, History of Science and Technology, Science Policy, high school teachers, undergraduate and graduate students of sciences and humanities, and the general interested public.

Download or read book News from Mars written by Joshua Nall and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mass media in the late nineteenth century was full of news from Mars. In the wake of Giovanni Schiaparelli’s 1877 discovery of enigmatic dark, straight lines on the red planet, astronomers and the public at large vigorously debated the possibility that it might be inhabited. As rivalling scientific practitioners looked to marshal allies and sway public opinion—through newspapers, periodicals, popular books, exhibitions, and encyclopaedias—they exposed disagreements over how the discipline of astronomy should be organized and how it should establish acceptable conventions of discourse. News from Mars provides a new account of this extraordinary episode in the history of astronomy, revealing how major transformations in astronomical practice across Britain and America were inextricably tied up with popular scientific culture and a transatlantic news economy that enabled knowledge to travel. As Joshua Nall argues, astronomers were journalists, too, eliding practice with communication in consequential ways. As writers and editors, they played a pivotal role in the emergence of a “new astronomy” dedicated to the study of the physical constitution and life history of celestial objects, blurring harsh distinctions between those who produced esoteric knowledge and those who disseminated it.

Download or read book Neptune From Grand Discovery to a World Revealed written by William Sheehan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-21 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1846 discovery of Neptune is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of science and astronomy. John Couch Adams and U.J. Le Verrier both investigated anomalies in the motion of Uranus and independently predicted the existence and location of this new planet. However, interpretations of the events surrounding this discovery have long been mired in controversy. Who first predicted the new planet? Was the discovery just a lucky fluke? The ensuing storm engaged astronomers across Europe and the United States. Written by an international group of authors, this pathbreaking volume explores in unprecedented depth the contentious history of Neptune’s discovery, drawing on newly discovered documents and re-examining the historical record. In so doing, we gain new understanding of the actions of key individuals and sharper insights into the pressures acting on them. The discovery of Neptune was a captivating mathematical moment and was widely regarded at the time as the greatest triumph of Newton’s theory of universal gravitation. The book therefore begins with Newton’s development of his ideas of gravity. It examines too the mathematical calculations related to the discovery of Neptune, using new theories and tools provided by advances in celestial mechanics over the past twenty years. Through this process, the book analyzes why the mathematical approach that proved so potent in the discovery of Neptune, grand as it was, could not help produce similar discoveries despite several valiant attempts. In the final chapters, we see how the discovery of Neptune marked the end of one quest—to explain the wayward motions of Uranus—and the beginning of another quest to fill in the map and understand the nature of the outer Solar System, whose icy precincts Neptune, as the outermost of the giant planets, bounds.

Download or read book Observing and Cataloguing Nebulae and Star Clusters written by Wolfgang Steinicke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-19 with total page 661 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing the first comprehensive historical study of the New General Catalogue, this book is an important resource to all those interested in the history of modern astronomy and visual deep-sky observing. It covers the people, observatories, instruments and methods involved in nineteenth-century visual deep-sky observing, as well as prominent deep-sky objects.

Download or read book The Spirit of Inquiry written by Susannah Gibson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cambridge is now world-famous as a centre of science, but it wasn't always so. Before the nineteenth century, the sciences were of little importance in the University of Cambridge. But that began to change in 1819 when two young Cambridge fellows took a geological fieldtrip to the Isle of Wight. Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow spent their days there exploring, unearthing dazzling fossils, dreaming up elaborate theories about the formation of the earth, and bemoaning the lack of serious science in their ancient university. As they threw themselves into the exciting new science of geology - conjuring millions of years of history from the evidence they found in the island's rocks - they also began to dream of a new scientific society for Cambridge. This society would bring together like-minded young men who wished to learn of the latest science from overseas, and would encourage original research in Cambridge. It would be, they wrote, a society "to keep alive the spirit of inquiry". Their vision was realised when they founded the Cambridge Philosophical Society later that same year. Its founders could not have imagined the impact the Cambridge Philosophical Society would have: it was responsible for the first publication of Charles Darwin's scientific writings, and hosted some of the most heated debates about evolutionary theory in the nineteenth century; it saw the first announcement of x-ray diffraction by a young Lawrence Bragg - a technique that would revolutionise the physical, chemical and life sciences; it published the first paper by C.T.R. Wilson on his cloud chamber - a device that opened up a previously-unimaginable world of sub-atomic particles. 200 years on from the Society's foundation, this book reflects on the achievements of Sedgwick, Henslow, their peers, and their successors. Susannah Gibson explains how Cambridge moved from what Sedgwick saw as a "death-like stagnation" (really little more than a provincial training school for Church of England clergy) to being a world-leader in the sciences. And she shows how science, once a peripheral activity undertaken for interest by a small number of wealthy gentlemen, has transformed into an enormously well-funded activity that can affect every aspect of our lives.

Download or read book Sounds of War written by Emma Hanna and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music in all its forms was an indispensable part of everyday life in Britain's armed forces during the Great War.

Download or read book Unravelling Starlight written by Barbara J. Becker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging traditional accounts of the origins of astrophysics, this book presents the first scholarly biography of nineteenth-century English amateur astronomer William Huggins (1824–1910). A pioneer in adapting the spectroscope to new astronomical purposes, William Huggins rose to scientific prominence in London and transformed professional astronomy to become a principal founder of the new science of astrophysics. The author re-examines his life and career, exploring unpublished notebooks, correspondence and research projects to expose the boldness of this scientific entrepreneur. While Sir William Huggins is the main focus of the book, the involvement of Lady Margaret Lindsay Huggins (1848–1915) in her husband's research is examined, where it may have been previously overlooked or obscured. Written in an engaging style, this book has broad appeal and will be valuable to scientists, students and anyone interested in the history of astronomy.

Download or read book The Making of Modern Science written by David Knight and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-26 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the inventions of the nineteenth century, the scientist is one of the most striking. In revolutionary France the science student, taught by men active in research, was born; and a generation later, the graduate student doing a PhD emerged in Germany. In 1833 the word 'scientist' was coined; forty years later science (increasingly specialised) was a becoming a profession. Men of science rivalled clerics and critics as sages; they were honoured as national treasures, and buried in state funerals. Their new ideas invigorated the life of the mind. Peripatetic congresses, great exhibitions, museums, technical colleges and laboratories blossomed; and new industries based on chemistry and electricity brought prosperity and power, economic and military. Eighteenth-century steam engines preceded understanding of the physics underlying them; but electric telegraphs and motors were applied science, based upon painstaking interpretation of nature. The ideas, discoveries and inventions of scientists transformed the world: lives were longer and healthier, cities and empires grew, societies became urban rather than agrarian, the local became global. And by the opening years of the twentieth century, science was spreading beyond Europe and North America, and women were beginning to be visible in the ranks of scientists. Bringing together the people, events, and discoveries of this exciting period into a lively narrative, this book will be essential reading both for students of the history of science and for anyone interested in the foundations of the world as we know it today.

Download or read book Beating the Odds written by Meg Weston Smith and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: E A Milne was one of the giants of 20th century astrophysics and cosmology. His bold ideas, underpinned by his Christianity, sparked controversy — he believed two time scales operate in the universe. Struggling against poverty, Milne won five scholarships to Cambridge, but he never finished his degree. In World War I he was invited to develop Horace Darwin's device for anti-aircraft gunnery and after the Armistice his prowess in ballistics took him straight to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. By the age of thirty he was a Manchester professor and a Fellow of the Royal Society. At Oxford he battled to improve the university's attitude towards science, and established a world-centre of astrophysics. He suffered from Parkinsonism in his forties, the consequence of his having had encephalitis lethargica as a young man. However, buoyed by his Christian faith, he did not slacken his pace. When he died, twice widowed, the author — Milne's daughter — was a teenager. This book is born out of curiosity. The author's aim is to show the human face of science, how the course of her father's life was shaped by circumstance and by the influence of illustrious friends and colleagues such as Einstein, Eddington, G H Hardy, J B S Haldane, Hubble, F A Lindemann and Rutherford. Against all odds, Milne emerged as a scientific powerhouse — and a rebellious one at that. Contents:A Foothold on the LadderThe Upheavals of WarAdventures with ReflectionsThe Trials of TrumpetsCambridge RhapsodyRiding on a SunbeamNew HorizonsA Scientific WildernessCut and ThrustFamily versus CollegeCosmic Inspiration Oxford's EnlightenmentThe Pendulum and the AtomLifelineMathematics, Bombs and BureaucracyA InvitationA Race Unfinished Readership: Astronomers, cosmologists, mathematicians, science historians, audiences interested in wartime scientists, the relationship between science and religion, and encephalitis lethargica. Keywords:Astrophysics;Ballistics;Cosmology;Christianity;Encephalitis lethargica;History of 20th Century Science;Stellar Atmospheres;Kinematic Relativity;Time Scales;Anti-Aircraft Gunnery;Listening Trumpets;Armour Plating;Royal Astronomical Society;Royal Meteorological Society;Royal Navy;Radcliffe ObservatoryKey Features:First full length biography of E A Milne, with an introduction by Sir Roger PenroseThe book presents the life of a scientist through his personal interaction with people, e.g. the critical influence of A V Hill and World War I, and with events, e.g. dining at Trinity's High Table took Milne into astrophysics. Well-known figures, such as Einstein, Hubble, Rutherford, Cherwell and Churchill also come in to the storyMilne survived encephalitis lethargica, yet reached intellectual pinnacles. Although later Parkinsonism aged him prematurely, his brain was not affectedReviews: “I highly recommend the book (which contains more than enough references, to both primary and secondary sources, for those wanting to learn more about Milne's work and its influence), because it does everything else very well. I recommend the book to anyone interested in astronomy, academia, or their history, it was a very enjoyable read.”The Observatory “I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of science or even just in history itself. It is not technical and so does not require any mathematics background to read. The book itself is deeply personal and yet wholly accessible. It is a terrific homage to a father who sincerely tried his best to provide for his family and to serve his country, college, and students, all while contributing a wealth of ground breaking and enduring ideas to applied mathematics.”Quantum Moxie “It is not just the story of the man by a dutiful daughter, but a true work of scholarship, aided by the countless experts she has consulted. Meg Weston Smith is to be thanked for informing us with such panache of the struggles and truimphs of her remarkable father.”LMS Newsletter