A History of Astronomy : from 1890 to the Present /

Why start at 1890? That year marked one of the most significant dates in the history of the multidimensional story that is the history of astronomy. It was the year in which the Draper Memorial Catalogue of Stellar spectra was published - a publication that provided essential data for an understandi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Leverington, David
Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: London : Springer London, 1995.
Subjects:
Online Access:Connect to the full text of this electronic book
Description
Summary:Why start at 1890? That year marked one of the most significant dates in the history of the multidimensional story that is the history of astronomy. It was the year in which the Draper Memorial Catalogue of Stellar spectra was published - a publication that provided essential data for an understanding of stellar spectra well into the twentieth century. It's also slightly over a hundred years ago. This is a long enough span of time for any one book on this subject to cover, but sufficient to chart the progress of astronomy from a time when Newtonian physics reigned supreme, photography was in its infancy, and radio astronomy was decades in the future. Paradoxically, the theories of Einstein, Planck and Heisenberg, along with modern radio, X-ray, and space-borne telescopes mean that the cosmos seems to hold more mysteries today than it did a hundred years ago. Any reader with a basic knowledge of astronomy will find this book quite fascinating. Academics, historians, and others who need a definitive history of the major events and characters that influenced the growth of astronomy.
Item Description:Electronic resource.
Physical Description:1 online resource (XII, 388 pages)
ISBN:9781447121244 (electronic bk.)
1447121244 (electronic bk.)