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 The Emergence of Astrophysics in Asia written by Tsuko Nakamura and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-03 with total page 878 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the ways in which attitudes toward astronomy in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand and Uzbekistan have changed with the times. The emergence of astrophysics was a worldwide phenomenon during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it gradually replaced the older-style positional astronomy, which focused on locating and measuring the movements of the planets, stars, etc.. Here you will find national overviews that are at times followed by case studies of individual notable achievements. Although the emphasis is on the developments that occurred around 1900, later pioneering efforts in Australian, Chinese, Indian and Japanese radio astronomy are also included. As the first book ever published on the early development of astrophysics in Asia, the authors fill a chronological and technological void. Though others have already written about earlier astronomical developments in Asia, and about the recent history of astronomy in various Asian nations, no one has examined the emergence of astrophysics, the so-called ‘new astronomy’ in Asia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Download or read book The Birth of Time written by John Gribbin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent breakthroughs in measuring the age of the universe with the Hubble Space Telescope are the subject of this book, written by a science writer who was a research astronomer involved in the discoveries. Illustrations.

Download or read book Helium written by Wheeler M. "Bo" Sears, Jr. and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subject of the book is helium, the element, and its use in myriad applications including MRI machines, particle accelerators, space telescopes, and of course balloons and blimps. It was at the birth of our Universe, or the Big Bang, where the majority of cosmic helium was created; and stellar helium production continues. Although helium is the second most abundant element in the Universe, it is actually quite rare here on Earth and only exists because of radioactive elements deep within the Earth. This book includes a detailed history of the discovery of helium, of the commercial industry built around it, how the helium we actually encounter is produced within the Earth, and the state of the helium industry today. The gas that most people associate with birthday party balloons is running out. “Who cares?” you might ask. Well, without helium, MRI machines could not function, rockets could not go into space, particle accelerators such as those used by CERN could not operate, fiber optic cables would not exist, and semiconductor chips could not be made...the list goes on and on.

Download or read book The Growth and Development of Astronomy and Astrophysics in India and the Asia Pacific Region written by Wayne Orchiston and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-28 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the study of astronomy in different cultures, applied historical astronomy and history of multi-wavelength astronomy, and the genesis of recent research. It contains peer-reviewed papers gathered from the International Conference on Oriental Astronomy 9 (ICOA-9) held at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune, India. It covers the areas like megalithic and other prehistoric astronomy, astronomical records in ancient texts, astronomical myths and architecture, astronomical themes in numismatics and rock art, ancient astronomers and their instruments, star maps and star catalogues, historical records and observations of astronomical events, calendars, calendrical science and chronology, the relation between astronomy and mathematics, and maritime astronomy. This book will be a valuable complement to a future generation of students and researchers who develop an interest in the field of Asian and circum-Pacific history of astronomy.

Download or read book Find a Hotter Place written by Ludwik Marian Celnikier and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2006 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Find a hotter place! is the insightful story of the tortured path that led to our current understanding of how the elements in the Universe came to be. This is a story which began in Greek Antiquity, with the first musings on the nature of matter and the void, and continues today with ever more refined analyses involving virtually every aspect of 20th century physics, astronomy, cosmology and information technology. Identifying the source of stellar energy, probing the earliest instants of the Universe, and discovering of how and where each element was made are some of the outstanding success stories of the 20th century, but have received little attention beyond the specialized literature.The year 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of the key papers on stellar nucleosynthesis, universally referred to as the B2FH paper. This book is a timely survey of how a new discipline OCo nuclear astrophysics OCo was born, and how it has matured. Almost completely non-technical, the book remains scientifically rigorous, and thereby fills an important gap.Science is not a linear process, as the ill-named OC scientific methodOCO might suggest to the unwary. The author emphasizes the meanders, the dead ends and the obsessive dogmas which have guided researchers through the 20th century. He also makes it clear that our understanding of where the elements come from has come through discoveries in diverse, not necessarily related, disciplines."

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 Exploring the History of New Zealand Astronomy written by Wayne Orchiston and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 707 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Orchiston is a foremost authority on the subject of New Zealand astronomy, and here are the collected papers of his fruitful studies in this area, including both those published many years ago and new material. The papers herein review traditional Maori astronomy, examine the appearance of nautical astronomy practiced by Cook and his astronomers on their various stopovers in New Zealand during their three voyagers to the South Seas, and also explore notable nineteenth century New Zealand observatories historically, from significant telescopes now located in New Zealand to local and international observations made during the 1874 and 1882 transits of Venus and the nineteenth and twentieth century preoccupation of New Zealand amateur astronomers with comets and meteors. New Zealand astronomy has a truly rich history, extending from the Maori civilization in pre-European times through to the years when explorers and navigators discovered the region, up to pioneering research on the newly emerging field of radio astronomy during WWII and in the immediate post-war years. A complete survey of a neglected but rich national astronomical history, this does the subject full and comprehensive justice.

Download or read book The Human Cosmos written by Jo Marchant and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Best Book of 2020 (NPR) A Best Book of 2020 (The Economist) A Top Ten Best Science Book of 2020 (Smithsonian) A Best Science and Technology Book of 2020 (Library Journal) A Must-Read Book to Escape the Chaos of 2020 (Newsweek) Starred review (Booklist) Starred review (Publishers Weekly) A historically unprecedented disconnect between humanity and the heavens has opened. Jo Marchant's book can begin to heal it. For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are—our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. It's a disconnect with a dire cost. Our relationship to the stars and planets has moved from one of awe, wonder and superstition to one where technology is king—the cosmos is now explored through data on our screens, not by the naked eye observing the natural world. Indeed, in most countries, modern light pollution obscures much of the night sky from view. Jo Marchant's spellbinding parade of the ways different cultures celebrated the majesty and mysteries of the night sky is a journey to the most awe-inspiring view you can ever see: looking up on a clear dark night. That experience and the thoughts it has engendered have radically shaped human civilization across millennia. The cosmos is the source of our greatest creativity in art, in science, in life. To show us how, Jo Marchant takes us to the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux in France, and to the summer solstice at a 5,000-year-old tomb at Newgrange, Ireland. We discover Chumash cosmology and visit medieval monks grappling with the nature of time and Tahitian sailors navigating by the stars. We discover how light reveals the chemical composition of the sun, and we are with Einstein as he works out that space and time are one and the same. A four-billion-year-old meteor inspires a search for extraterrestrial life. The cosmically liberating, summary revelation is that star-gazing made us human.

Download or read book Our Place in the Universe written by Norman K. Glendenning and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2007 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Place in the Universe tells the story of our world, formation of the first galaxies and stars formed from great clouds containing the primordial elements made in the first few minutes; birth of stars, their lives and deaths in fiery supernova explosions; formation of the solar system, its planets and many moons; life on Earth, its needs and vicissitudes on land and in the seas; finally exoplanets, planets that surround distant stars. Interspersed in the text are short pieces on some of those who revealed these wonders to us.It is written in a very authoritative and readable form and contains more than 100 color prints of the marvelous galaxies, and nebula that have been taken from space-based and land-based telescopes carried by NASA missions, the European Space Agency, the European Southern Laboratory in Chile and many other sources.

Download or read book Eclipse and Revelation written by Associate Professor of Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture Henrike Lange and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A uniquely prismatic representation of total solar eclipses, this volume invites us to imagine a liberated mode of discovery, perception, creativity, and knowledge-production across the traditional academic divisions.

Download or read book Nearest Star written by Leon Golub and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-24 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and readable introduction to the Sun, our nearest star, from two experienced astronomers, for general science readers.

Download or read book Constructing Quantum Mechanics written by Anthony Duncan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructing Quantum Mechanics is the first of two volumes on the genesis of quantum mechanics. This volume traces the early contributions by Planck, Einstein, and Bohr, all showing the need for drastic changes to the physics of their day. It examines the efforts by Sommerfeld and others to develop a new theory, now known as the old quantum theory. After some striking successes, this theory ran into serious difficulties and ended up serving as the scaffold on which the arch of modern quantum mechanics was built. This volume breaks new ground, both in its treatment of the work of Sommerfeld and his associates, and by offering new perspectives on classic papers by Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and others. Paying close attention to both primary and secondary sources, Constructing Quantum Mechanics provides an in-depth analysis of the heroic struggle to come to terms with the wealth of mostly spectroscopic data that eventually gave us modern quantum mechanics.

Download or read book Reinvention Of Science The Slaying The Dragons Of Dogma And Ignorance written by Bernard J T Jones and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2023-11-02 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the history of science, different thinkers, philosophers and scientists postulated the existence of entities that, in spite of their not being visible or detectable in their time, or perhaps ever, were nevertheless useful to explain the real world. We started this book by looking at a handful of these entities. These included phlogiston to account for fire; the luminiferous ether for propagation of radiation; the homunculus to provide for heredity; and crystalline spheres to carry the wandering planets around the earth. Many of these erroneous beliefs had held up progress, just as dragons drawn on the edges of a map discouraged exploration. This pattern of science evolution continued through the centuries up to the present day.The book evolved into a more extensive history of how science evolved through controversy, suppression, and the desire to maintain the status quo. Our story passes from the Babylonians and Greeks through the middle ages, the renaissance and the scientific revolution to almost current events. We discuss the evolution of our world, the controversy about the extinction of dinosaurs, and open questions in contemporary science such as dark matter, black holes and the origin of the Universe, including how we understand the subatomic world of elementary particles.Most of the chapters deal with astronomy, cosmology and physics, but there are brief ventures into geosciences (continental drift), biosciences (the homunculus), atmospheric physics (Heaviside layer), paleontology (the extinction of dinosaurs), and computer science (artificial intelligence). The authors present a sequence of how mistakes and fallacies have been purged from our quest to understand nature. The way these changes have come about are skillfully set in their relevant historical contexts.

Download or read book No Shadow of a Doubt written by Daniel Kennefick and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On their 100th anniversary, the story of the extraordinary scientific expeditions that ushered in the era of relativity In 1919, British scientists led extraordinary expeditions to Brazil and Africa to test Albert Einstein's revolutionary new theory of general relativity in what became the century's most celebrated scientific experiment. The result ushered in a new era and made Einstein a global celebrity by confirming his dramatic prediction that the path of light rays would be bent by gravity. Today, Einstein's theory is scientific fact. Yet the effort to weigh light by measuring the gravitational deflection of starlight during the May 29, 1919, solar eclipse has become clouded by myth and skepticism. Could Arthur Eddington and Frank Dyson have gotten the results they claimed? Did the pacifist Eddington falsify evidence to foster peace after a horrific war by validating the theory of a German antiwar campaigner? In No Shadow of a Doubt, Daniel Kennefick provides definitive answers by offering the most comprehensive and authoritative account of how expedition scientists overcame war, bad weather, and equipment problems to make the experiment a triumphant success. The reader follows Eddington on his voyage to Africa through his letters home, and delves with Dyson into how the complex experiment was accomplished, through his notes. Other characters include Howard Grubb, the brilliant Irishman who made the instruments; William Campbell, the American astronomer who confirmed the result; and Erwin Findlay-Freundlich, the German whose attempts to perform the test in Crimea were foiled by clouds and his arrest. By chronicling the expeditions and their enormous impact in greater detail than ever before, No Shadow of a Doubt reveals a story that is even richer and more exciting than previously known.

Download or read book 150 Years of the Periodic Table written by Carmen J. Giunta and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-07-04 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the origins and evolution of the periodic system from its prehistory to the latest synthetic elements and possible future additions. The periodic system of the elements first emerged as a comprehensive classificatory and predictive tool for chemistry during the 1860s. Its subsequent embodiment in various versions has made it one of the most recognizable icons of science. Based primarily on a symposium titled “150 Years of the Periodic Table” and held at the August 2019 national meeting of the American Chemical Society, this book describes the origins of the periodic law, developments that led to its acceptance, chemical families that the system struggled to accommodate, extension of the periodic system to include synthetic elements, and various cultural aspects of the system that were celebrated during the International Year of the Periodic Table.

Download or read book From Dust to Life written by John Chambers and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The birth and evolution of our solar system is a tantalizing mystery that may one day provide answers to the question of human origins. From Dust to Life tells the remarkable story of how the celestial objects that make up the solar system arose from common beginnings billions of years ago, and how scientists and philosophers have sought to unravel this mystery down through the centuries, piecing together the clues that enabled them to deduce the solar system's layout, its age, and the most likely way it formed. Drawing on the history of astronomy and the latest findings in astrophysics and the planetary sciences, John Chambers and Jacqueline Mitton offer the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available. They examine how the evolving universe set the stage for the appearance of our Sun, and how the nebulous cloud of gas and dust that accompanied the young Sun eventually became the planets, comets, moons, and asteroids that exist today. They explore how each of the planets acquired its unique characteristics, why some are rocky and others gaseous, and why one planet in particular--our Earth--provided an almost perfect haven for the emergence of life. From Dust to Life is a must-read for anyone who desires to know more about how the solar system came to be. This enticing book takes readers to the very frontiers of modern research, engaging with the latest controversies and debates. It reveals how ongoing discoveries of far-distant extrasolar planets and planetary systems are transforming our understanding of our own solar system's astonishing history and its possible fate.