The General History of Astronomy

by Edited by René Taton , Curtis Wilson , General editor Michael Hoskin

• ISBN13: 9780521120098
• ISBN10: 0521120098
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Part B of Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics is the sequel to Part A and continues the history of celestial mechanics and observational discovery through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Twelve different authors have contributed their expertise in some eighteen chapters, each of them intended to be accessible to the interested layman. An initial section deals with stages in the reception of Newton's inverse square law as exact. In the remainder of the book a large place is given to the development of the mathematical theory of celestial mechanics from Clairaut and Euler to LeVerrier, Newcomb, Hill and Poincarè - a topic rarely treated, at once synoptically and in some detail. Lists of further reading provide entrèe to the literature of these several topics.

Table of Contents

Early Phases in the Reception of Newton's Theory:

The vortex theory in competition with Newtonian celestial dynamics

The shape of the Earth Seymour

Clairaut and the motion of the lunar apse: The inverse-square law undergoes a test

The precession of the equinoxes from Newton to d'Alembert

The solar tables of Lacaille and the lunar tables of Mayer

Predicting the mid-eighteenth-century return of Halley's Comet

Celestial Mechanics During the Eighteenth Century:

The problem of perturbation analytically treated

The work of Lagrange in celestial mechanics

Laplace Bruno Morando

Observational Astronomy and the Application of Theory in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century:

Measuring solar parallax: The Venus transits of 1761 and 1769 and their nineteenth-ôcentury sequels

The discovery of Uranus, the Titius-Bode and the asteroids

Eighteenth-ôand nineteenth century developments in the theory and practice of orbit determination

The introduction of statistical reasoning into astronomy: from Newton to PoincarÃâ©

Astronomy and the theory of errors: from the method of averages to the method of least squares

The Development of Theory During the Nineteenth Century:

The golden age of celestial mechanics

The Application of Celestial Mechanics to the Solar System to the End of the Nineteenth Century:

Three centuries of lunar and planetary ephemerides and tables

Satellite ephemerides to 1900

Illustrations

Combined index for Parts 2A and 2B

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.