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The Story of Astronomy PDF

390 Pages·1995·7.192 MB·English
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THESTORYOF ASTRONOMY THESTORYOF ASTRONOMY LloydMotz and Jefferson Hane Weaver SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data On file ISBN 978-0-306-45090-7 ISBN 978-1-4899-6309-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-6309-3 © 1995 Lloyd Motz and Jefferson Hane Weaver Originally published by Plenum Press in 1995. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1995 109 8 765 4 3 2 1 All righ ts reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher Preface Of all the scientific disciplines Astronomy stands out as the all-en compassing one in that all the other sciences grew out of astronomy and are still influenced by it. A his tory of astronomy, to be com plete, should trace these interscience relationships to some extent, but the story of astronomy is not subject to these constraints. By the very designation as a "story," this book was designed, and so written, to delineate the high points of astronomy and to trace the evolution of the great astronomical ideas from their birth as pure speculations in the minds of the great astronomers of the past to their present fully developed and fully accepted state. This, of course, entails a fuller discussion of the astronomers themselves than one might find in a history of astronomy or in a straightforward treatise in astronomy. We have emphasized this phase of the story of astronomy in this book. This has been very fmitful and revealed the intimate relationship among the sciences: particularly astronomy, physics, and mathematics. One can hardly speak of Kepler, Galileo, or Newton without describing their holistic approaches to astronomy. Thus Galileo considered himself a mathematician who speculated all phases of nature and Newton was the great polymath who contributed to all phases of mathematics, astronomy, and physics, seeking in each of these disciplines the theoretical bridges to the others, and the great nineteenth century mathematician earl Friedrich Gauss greatly enriched astronomy by applying his great mathematical skill to the solution of complex astronomical problems. And so it went, culminating in Einstein's great theoretical discoveries of the photon and the theory of relativity that ushered in our current rational approach to cosmology. v vi PREFACE Our concern in writing this book was to see how dose we could come to this ideal and to present to the reader one of the most exciting stories in the history of civilization. We hope that we have succeeded. Lloyd Motz Jefferson Hane Weaver Contents CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Astronomy 1 CHAPTER 2 The Ancient Cosmologies 13 CHAPTER 3 The Greek Philosophers and the Early Greek Astronomers 21 CHAPTER 4 From Aristarchus to Ptolemy: The Birth of Accurate Observational Astronomy 39 CHAPTER 5 The Revival of European Astronomy 57 CHAPTER 6 Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler 69 CHAPTER 7 Galileo, the Astronomical Telescope, and the Beginning of Modem Astronomy 89 CHAPTER 8 The Newtonian Era 107 CHAPTER 9 The Rise of Modem Astronomy 129 CHAPTER 10 Post-Newtonian Astronomy 143 CHAPTER 11 The Beginning of the New Age of Astronomy: Beyond the Solar System 159 CHAPTER 12 Astronomy as a Branch of Physics 185 CHAPTER 13 The New Physics and Its Impact on Astronomy 205 vii vüi CONTENTS CHAPfER 14 Relativity and Astronomy 233 CHAPTER 15 The Origin and Development of Astrophysics 257 CHAPTER 16 Stellar Evolution and the Beginning of Galactic Astronomy 279 CHAPTER 17 Beyond the Stars: The Galaxies 309 CHAPTER 18 Cosmology 331 Epilogue 353 Bibliography 361 Index 363 THESTORYOF ASTRONOMY CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Astronomy lf I had been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better arrangement of the universe. -ALFONSO 1HE WISE, KING OF CASTILE Astronomy, as an orderly pursuit of knowledge about the heavenly bodies and the universe, did not begin in one moment at some particular epoch in a single society. Every ancient society had its own concept of the universe (cosmology) and of humanity's rela tionship to the universe. In most cases, these concepts were cer tainly molded by three forces: theology (religion), nature (climate, floods, winds, natural disasters), and the assumed influence of the stars and planets on the fortunes and fate of people and their so cieties (astrology). Because theology deals with the creation of the universe and everything in it, the various religions were quite naturally the pre cursors of the ancient astronomies. To the ancients the apparent di vision of their universe into water, land, and sky pointed to a creator or creators who could dweIl primarily in the sky. The study of the sky became an important phase of religion around the world. The astronomy that stemmed from these studies was, of course, extremely primitive. Gods were believed by many ancient societies to inhabit not only the heavens but also the highest mountains and the deepest oceans. We can see the profound influence of religion on the develop ment of astronomy most clearly when we consider that from the time of the Babyionians to the Roman era, astronomical knowledge and the management of the calendar were confined to the priest hood in most cultures. The Babyionians believed the heavens, the dwellings of the gods, was a "solid vault" with its foundations sup ported by the oceans and that the earth was a huge island at the 1

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