Download or read book The Birth of Modern Astronomy written by Harm J. Habing and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly illustrated book discusses the ways in which astronomy expanded after 1945 from a modest discipline to a robust and modern science. It begins with an introduction to the state of astronomy in 1945 before recounting how in the following years, initial observations were made in hitherto unexplored ranges of wavelengths, such as X-radiation, infrared radiation and radio waves. These led to the serendipitous discovery of more than a dozen new phenomena, including quasars and neutron stars, that each triggered a new area of research. The book goes on to discuss how after 1985, the further, systematic exploration of the earlier discoveries led to long-term planning and the construction of new, large telescopes on Earth and in Space. Key scientific highlights described in the text are the detection of exoplanets (1995), the unexpected discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe (1999), a generally accepted model for the large-scale properties of the Universe (2003) and the ΛCDM theory (2005) that explains how the galaxies and stars of the present Universe were formed from minute irregularities in the (almost) homogenous gas that filled the early Universe. All these major scientific achievements came at a price, namely the need to introduce two new phenomena that are as yet unexplained by physics: inflation and dark energy. Probably the deepest unsolved question has to be: Why did all of this start with a Big Bang?
Download or read book The Birth of Modern Astronomy written by Harm J. Habing and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Astronomical Revolution written by Alexandre Koyre and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in English in 1973. This volume traces the development of the revolution which so drastically altered man’s view of the universe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The "astronomical revolution" was accomplished in three stages, each linked with the work of one man. With Copernicus, the sun became the centre of the universe. With Kepler, celestial dynamics replaced the kinematics of circles and spheres used by Copernicus. With Borelli the unification of celestial and terrestrial physics was completed by abandonment of the circle in favour the straight line to infinity.
Download or read book Secrets of the Hoary Deep written by Riccardo Giacconi and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2008-06-20 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Noble Prize–winning Italian astrophysicist shares his scientific autobiography and the history of the development of contemporary astronomy. The discovery of x-rays continues to have a profound effect on the field of astronomy. It has opened the cosmos to exploration in ways previously unimaginable, and fundamentally altered the methods for pursuing information about outer space. Nobel Prize–winner Riccardo Giacconi’s highly personal account of the birth and evolution of x-ray astronomy reveals the science, people, and institutional settings behind this important and influential discipline. Part history, part memoir, and part cutting-edge science, Secrets of the Hoary Deep is the tale of x-ray astronomy from its infancy through what can only be called its early adulthood. It also details how the tools, techniques, and practices designed to support and develop x-ray astronomy were transferred to optical, infrared, and radio astronomy, drastically altering the face of modern space exploration. Giacconi relates the basic techniques developed at American Science and Engineering and explains how, where, and by whom the science was advanced. From the first Earth-orbiting x-ray satellite, Uhuru, to the opening of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the lift-off of the Hubble Space Telescope to the construction of the Very Large Telescope, Giaconni recounts the ways in which the management methods and scientific methodology behind successful astronomy projects came to set the standards of operations for all subsequent space- and Earth-based observatories. Along the way he spares no criticism and holds back no praise, detailing individual as well as institutional failures and successes, reflecting upon how far astronomy has come and how far it has yet to go.
Download or read book 1001 Inventions written by Salim T. S. Al-Hassani and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern society owes a tremendous amount to the Muslim world for the many groundbreaking scientific and technological advances that were pioneered during the Golden Age of Muslim civilization between the 7th and 17th centuries. Every time you drink coffee, eat a three-course meal, get a whiff of your favorite perfume, take shelter in an earthquake-resistant structure, get a broken bone set or solve an algebra problem, it is in part due to the discoveries of Muslim civilization.
Download or read book Comets Popular Culture and the Birth of Modern Cosmology written by Sara Schechner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a lively investigation into the boundaries between popular culture and early-modern science, Sara Schechner presents a case study that challenges the view that rationalism was at odds with popular belief in the development of scientific theories. Schechner Genuth delineates the evolution of people's understanding of comets, showing that until the seventeenth century, all members of society dreaded comets as heaven-sent portents of plague, flood, civil disorder, and other calamities. Although these beliefs became spurned as "vulgar superstitions" by the elite before the end of the century, she shows that they were nonetheless absorbed into the science of Newton and Halley, contributing to their theories in subtle yet profound ways. Schechner weaves together many strands of thought: views of comets as signs and causes of social and physical changes; vigilance toward monsters and prodigies as indicators of God's will; Christian eschatology; scientific interpretations of Scripture; astrological prognostication and political propaganda; and celestial mechanics and astrophysics. This exploration of the interplay between high and low beliefs about nature leads to the conclusion that popular and long-held views of comets as divine signs were not overturned by astronomical discoveries. Indeed, they became part of the foundation on which modern cosmology was built.
Download or read book Exploring the History of Southeast Asian Astronomy written by Wayne Orchiston and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-08-01 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume contains 24 different research papers by members of the History and Heritage Working Group of the Southeast Asian Astronomy Network. The chapters were prepared by astronomers from Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Scotland, Sweden, Thailand and Vietnam. They represent the latest understanding of cultural and scientific interchange in the region over time, from ethnoastronomy to archaeoastronomy and more. Gathering together researchers from various locales, this volume enabled new connections to be made in service of building a more holistic vision of astronomical history in Southeast Asia, which boasts a proud and deep tradition.
Download or read book The Birth of Modern Astronomy written by Harm J. Habing and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-23 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly illustrated book discusses the ways in which astronomy expanded after 1945 from a modest discipline to a robust and modern science. It begins with an introduction to the state of astronomy in 1945 before recounting how in the following years, initial observations were made in hitherto unexplored ranges of wavelengths, such as X-radiation, infrared radiation and radio waves. These led to the serendipitous discovery of more than a dozen new phenomena, including quasars and neutron stars, that each triggered a new area of research. The book goes on to discuss how after 1985, the further, systematic exploration of the earlier discoveries led to long-term planning and the construction of new, large telescopes on Earth and in Space. Key scientific highlights described in the text are the detection of exoplanets (1995), the unexpected discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe (1999), a generally accepted model for the large-scale properties of the Universe (2003) and the ΛCDM theory (2005) that explains how the galaxies and stars of the present Universe were formed from minute irregularities in the (almost) homogenous gas that filled the early Universe. All these major scientific achievements came at a price, namely the need to introduce two new phenomena that are as yet unexplained by physics: inflation and dark energy. Probably the deepest unsolved question has to be: Why did all of this start with a Big Bang?
Download or read book The Birth of Stars and Planets written by John Bally and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-08-24 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy written by James Evans and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-10-01 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy combines new scholarship with hands-on science to bring readers into direct contact with the work of ancient astronomers. While tracing ideas from ancient Babylon to sixteenth-century Europe, the book places its greatest emphasis on the Greek period, when astronomers developed the geometric and philosophical ideas that have determined the subsequent character of Western astronomy. The author approaches this history through the concrete details of ancient astronomical practice. Carefully organized and generously illustrated, the book can teach readers how to do real astronomy using the methods of ancient astronomers. For example, readers will learn to predict the next retrograde motion of Jupiter using either the arithmetical methods of the Babylonians or the geometric methods of Ptolemy. They will learn how to use an astrolabe and how to design sundials using Greek and Roman techniques. The book also contains supplementary exercises and patterns for making some working astronomical instruments, including an astrolabe and an equatorium. More than a presentation of astronomical methods, the book provides a critical look at the evidence used to reconstruct ancient astronomy. It includes extensive excerpts from ancient texts, meticulous documentation, and lively discussions of the role of astronomy in the various cultures. Accessible to a wide audience, this book will appeal to anyone interested in how our understanding of our place in the universe has changed and developed, from ancient times through the Renaissance.
Download or read book Scientific Instruments between East and West written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-09-02 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific Instruments between East and West is a collection of essays on the transmission of knowledge about scientific instruments and the trade in such instruments between the Eastern and Western worlds.
Download or read book The Story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics written by Biman B. Nath and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-11-10 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if one of the most thrilling stories in the history of science turned out to be wrong? Can urban legends creep into the hallowed grounds of scientific history? As incredible as it may sound, the story of one of the most important elements in modern times – helium - has been often misrepresented in books, encyclopedias, and online sources, despite the fact that archival materials tell a different story. Open the entry for Helium in any encyclopaedia and you will read a false story that has been repeated over the years. ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’, for example, says that helium was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Janssen while observing a total solar eclipse from India in 1868. Apparently he noticed something new in the spectrum of the sun, which he thought was the signature of an undiscovered element. The truth is that Janssen never saw any sign of a new element during his observations in India. His reports and letters do not mention any such claim. Other sources would have you believe that helium was jointly discovered by Janssen and Norman Lockyer, a British scientist, and that their discovery letters reached Paris the same day, one sent from India, and the other from England. Again, the truth is completely different. Two letters from Lockyer and Janssen did reach Paris the same day in 1868, but their letters did not mention any new element. What they had discovered was a new way of observing the Sun without a solar eclipse. This would ultimately lead to the discovery of helium, in which Lockyer would play a prominent role, but not Janssen. At the same time, Norman Robert Pogson, a disgruntled British astronomer stationed in India did notice something peculiar during the eclipse. He was the first one to notice something odd about the spectrum of the Sun that day, and his observations would prove crucial to Lockyer’s own investigations of helium. But Pogson’s report was never published in any peer reviewed journal and it languished on the desk of a local British officer in colonial India. This book tells the real story behind the discovery of helium, along with biographical sketches of the scientists and descriptions of the milieu in which they worked. It will convey the excitement, confusion, and passion of nineteenth century scientists, using their own words, from their letters and reports. “The Story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics” chronicles one of the most exciting discoveries ever made and explains why it also marked the birth of a new branch of science called ‘astrophysics.’
Download or read book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Concise Edition written by Copernicus and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversial at the time, Copernicus's discoveries led to the scientific revolution, and a greater understanding of our place in the universe. An accessible, abridged edition with a new introduction. Renaissance Natural philosopher Nicolaus Copernicus's pioneering discovery of the heliocentric nature of the solar system is one of the few identifiable moments in history that define the understanding of the nature of all things. His great work was the consequence of long observation and resulted in the first stage of the Scientific Revolution by correctly positing that the earth and other planets of the solar system revolved around the sun. Not only did this promote further study to understand the place of humanity in the world and the universe, it questioned the authority of the organised Christian Church in the West to be the keeper of fundamental truths. Ultimately this would lead to the Enlightenment, and the separation of religion, government and science. The FLAME TREE Foundations series features core publications which together have shaped the cultural landscape of the modern world, with cutting-edge research distilled into pocket guides designed to be both accessible and informative.
Download or read book An Introduction to the Solar System written by David A. Rothery and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ongoing advances in Solar System exploration continue to reveal its splendour and diversity in remarkable detail. This undergraduate-level textbook presents fascinating descriptions and colour images of the bodies in the Solar System, the processes that occur upon and within them, and their origins and evolution. It highlights important concepts and techniques in boxed summaries, while questions and exercises are embedded at appropriate points throughout the text, with full solutions provided. Written and edited by a team of practising planetary scientists, this third edition has been updated to reflect our current knowledge. It is ideal for introductory courses on the subject, and is suitable for self-study. The text is supported by online resources, hosted at www.cambridge.org/solarsystem3, which include selected figures from the book, self-assessment questions and sample tutor assignments, with outlines of suggested answers.
Download or read book Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars written by Harm J. Habing and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The underlying astrophysical mechanisms of the objects known as asymptotic giant branch stars - the structures that occur during the dramatic period prior to a star's death - is the main theme of this text. Over the past three decades, asymptotic giant branch stars have become a topic of their own, and the contributions to this volume all focus on these entities themselves, rather than their connections to other fields of astronomy. Among the many topics covered are new methods of high- quality infrared observation and the more detailed and realistic simulations made possible by increasingly fast computers. This collection should be useful to graduate students who work in the field, teachers who want to address the subject in their courses, and to astronomers from various backgrounds who are interested in the astrophysics of AGB stars.
Download or read book Discourse on Floating Bodies written by Galileo Galilei and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As to the first, the last discoveries of Saturn to be tricorporeall, and of the mutations of Figure in Venus, like to those that are seen in the Moon, together with the Consequents depending thereupon, have not so much occasioned the demur, as the investigation of the times of the Conversions of each of the Four Medicean Planets about Jupiter, which I lighted upon in April the year past, 1611, at my being in Rome; where, in the end, I assertained my selfe, that the first and neerest to Jupiter, moved about 8 gr. & 29 m. of its Sphere in an houre, makeing its whole revolution in one naturall day, and 18 hours, and almost an halfe. The second moves in its Orbe 14 gr. 13 min. or very neer, in an hour, and its compleat conversion is consummate in 3 dayes, 13 hours, and one third, or thereabouts. The third passeth in an hour, 2 gr. 6 min. little more or less of its Circle, and measures it all in 7 dayes, 4 hours, or very neer. The fourth, and more remote than the rest, goes in one houre, 0 gr 54 min. and almost an halfe of its Sphere, and finisheth it all in 16 dayes, and very neer 18 hours. But because the excessive velocity of their returns or restitutions, requires a most scrupulous precisenesse to calculate their places, in times past and future, especially if the time be for many Moneths or Years; I am therefore forced, with other Observations, and more exact than the former, and in times more remote from one another, to correct the Tables of such Motions, and limit them even to the shortest moment: for such exactnesse my first Observations suffice not; not only in regard of the short intervals of Time, but because I had not as then found out a way to measure the distances between the said Planets by any Instrument: I Observed such Intervals with simple relation to the Diameter of the Body of Jupiter; taken, as we have said, by the eye, the which, though they admit not errors of above a Minute, yet they suffice not for the determination of the exact greatness of the Spheres of those Stars. But now that I have hit upon a way of taking such measures without failing, scarce in a very few Seconds, I will continue the observation to the very occultation of JUPITER, which shall serve to bring us to the perfect knowledge of the Motions, and Magnitudes of the Orbes of the said Planets, together also with some other consequences thence arising. I adde to these things the observation of some obscure Spots, which are discovered in the Solar Body, which changing, position in that, propounds to our consideration a great argument either that the Sun revolves in it selfe, or that perhaps other Starrs, in like manner as Venus and Mercury, revolve about it, invisible in other times, by reason of their small digressions, lesse than that of Mercury, and only visible when they interpose between the Sun and our eye, or else hint the truth of both this and that; the certainty of which things ought not to be contemned, nor omitted.
Download or read book Observing the Sky the Birth of Astronomy written by The Open The Open Courses Library and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-23 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Observing the Sky The Birth of Astronomy Our senses suggest to us that Earth is the center of the universe--the hub around which the heavens turn. This geocentric (Earth-centered) view was what almost everyone believed until the European Renaissance. After all, it is simple, logical, and seemingly self-evident. Furthermore, the geocentric perspective reinforced those philosophical and religious systems that taught the unique role of human beings as the central focus of the cosmos. However, the geocentric view happens to be wrong. One of the great themes of our intellectual history is the overthrow of the geocentric perspective. Let us, therefore, take a look at the steps by which we reevaluated the place of our world in the cosmic order. Chapter Outline: Thinking Ahead The Sky Above Ancient Astronomy Astrology and Astronomy The Birth of Modern Astronomy Key Terms The Open Courses Library introduces you to the best Open Source Courses.
