Download or read book Oxford Weather and Climate Since 1767 written by Stephen Burt and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Radcliffe Observatory possesses the longest continuous series of single-site weather records in the British Isles, and one of the longest in the world. The book comprises weather commentaries by month and season, a chronology of notable weather events in Oxford since the 17th Century, an analysis of climate change in Oxford over two centuries.
Download or read book A History of the Radcliffe Observatory Oxford written by Jeffery Burley and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 654 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 British University Observatories 1772 1939 written by Roger Hutchins and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full history of the six university observatories that undertook research before World War II - Oxford, Dunsink, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow and London - and their struggle to evolve in the middle ground between the royal or government observatories, and those of the 'Grand Amateurs'. The book will intrigue anyone interested in the history of astronomy, of telescopes, of patronage networks, of scientific institutions, and of the history of universities.
Download or read book A Historical Account of the Ashmolean Natural History Society of Oxfordshire 1880 1905 written by Frank Arthur Bellamy and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Oxford Weather and Climate since 1767 written by Stephen Burt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British have always been obsessed by the weather. Thomas Hornsby, who founded the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford in 1772, began weather observations at the site. They continue daily to this day, unbroken since 14 November 1813, the longest continuous series of single-site weather records in the British Isles, and one of the longest in the world. Oxford Weather and Climate since 1767 represents the first full publication of this newly-digitised record of English weather, which will appeal to interested readers and climate researchers alike. The book celebrates this unique and priceless Georgian legacy by describing and explaining how the records were (and still are) made, examines monthly and seasonal weather patterns across two centuries, and considers the context of long-term climate change. Local documentary sources and contemporary photographs bring the statistics to life, from the clouds of 'smoak' from the Great Fire of London in 1666 to the most recent floods. This book explores all the weather extremes, from bitter cold winters to hot, dry summers, bringing to life the painstaking measurements made over the last 250 years.
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 2018-06-05 with total page 302 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 History of Astronomy written by John Lankford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Encyclopedia traces the history of the oldest science from the ancient world to the space age in over 300 entries by leading experts.
Download or read book A History of Astronomy written by David Leverington and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of astronomy is, like most history, a multidimensional story, and when writing about a specific period, the author has to decide how to handle all the developments of earlier times in order to set the scene. I have done this by starting most chapters of the book with a summary of astronomical knowledge at the beginning of our chosen period, together with a brief review of how such knowledge had been gained. This story is not only interesting in itself, but it will also assist those readers that would appreciate a brief reminder of some of the basic elements of astronomy. It is also necessary to decide when to start our history. Should it be the year 1900 or 1890, or should it be linked to some key development or investigation, e. g. the discovery of the electron by J. J. Thomson in 1897, or the discovery of spectroscopic binary stars by Pickering and Vogel (independently) in 1889, or maybe the year 1890 in which Thomas Edison tried unsuccessfully to detect radio waves from the Sun and Johannes Rydberg published his formula for atomic spectra? I have, in fact, decided to start this history at about 1890, as it was the year of publication of the Draper Memorial Catalogue of stellar spectra which, together with its updates, provided essential data for the understanding of stellar spectra until well into the twentieth century. This date also gives a clear hundred years up to the present.
Download or read book Oxford Figures written by John Fauvel and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of the intellectual and social life of a community, and of its interactions with the wider world. For 800 years mathematics has been researched and studied at Oxford, and the subject and its teaching have undergone profound changes during that time. This highly readable and beautifully illustrated book reveals the richness and influence of Oxford's mathematical tradition and the fascinating characters who helped to shape it. The story begins with the founding of the university of Oxford and the establishing of the medieval curriculum, in which mathematics had an important role. The Black Death, the advent of printing, the founding of the university of Cambridge, and the Newtonian revolution all had a great influence on the later development of mathematics at Oxford. So too did many well-known figures: Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, Edmond Halley, Benjamin Jowett, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, G. H. Hardy, to name but a few. Later chapters bring us to the twentieth century, and the book ends with some entertaining reminiscences by Sir Michael Atiyah of the thirty years he spent as an Oxford mathematician.
Download or read book Astronomical and Meteorological Observations Made at the United Statees Naval Observatory During the Year written by United States Naval Observatory and published by . This book was released on 1889 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Prospect of Global History written by James Belich and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Prospect of Global History offers a new approach to the study of history, looking at the subject across a greater chronological range and seeking perspectives from sources beyond conventional European narratives.
Download or read book The Sun Kings written by Stuart Clark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September of 1859, the entire Earth was engulfed in a gigantic cloud of seething gas, and a blood-red aurora erupted across the planet from the poles to the tropics. Around the world, telegraph systems crashed, machines burst into flames, and electric shocks rendered operators unconscious. Compasses and other sensitive instruments reeled as if struck by a massive magnetic fist. For the first time, people began to suspect that the Earth was not isolated from the rest of the universe. However, nobody knew what could have released such strange forces upon the Earth--nobody, that is, except the amateur English astronomer Richard Carrington. In this riveting account, Stuart Clark tells for the first time the full story behind Carrington's observations of a mysterious explosion on the surface of the Sun and how his brilliant insight--that the Sun's magnetism directly influences the Earth--helped to usher in the modern era of astronomy. Clark vividly brings to life the scientists who roundly rejected the significance of Carrington's discovery of solar flares, as well as those who took up his struggle to prove the notion that the Earth could be touched by influences from space. Clark also reveals new details about the sordid scandal that destroyed Carrington's reputation and led him from the highest echelons of science to the very lowest reaches of love, villainy, and revenge. The Sun Kings transports us back to Victorian England, into the very heart of the great nineteenth-century scientific controversy about the Sun's hidden influence over our planet.
Download or read book Bibliographical Index to North American Botany written by Sereno Watson and published by . This book was released on 1878 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections written by and published by . This book was released on 1878 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections written by Smithsonian Institution and published by . This book was released on 1878 with total page 894 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Glass Universe written by Dava Sobel and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomy A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and NPR's Science Friday Nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "A joy to read.” —The Wall Street Journal In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but soon the female corps included graduates of the new women's colleges—Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades—through the generous support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography—enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair. Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of the women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
