A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics

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Princeton University Press, 2004 - 282 pages

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the history of ideas about the sun and the stars, from antiquity to modern times. Two theoretical astrophysicists who have been active in the field since the early 1960s tell the story in fluent prose. About half of the book covers most of the theoretical research done from 1940 to the close of the twentieth century, a large body of work that has to date been little explored by historians.


The first chapter, which outlines the period from about 3000 B.C. to 1700 A.D., shows that at every stage in history human beings have had a particular understanding of the sun and stars, and that this has continually evolved over the centuries. Next the authors systematically address the immense mass of observations astronomy accumulated from the early seventeenth century to the early twentieth. The remaining four chapters examine the history of the field from the physicists perspective, the emphasis being on theoretical work from the mid-1840s to the late 1990s--from thermodynamics to quantum mechanics, from nuclear physics and magnetohydrodynamics to the remarkable advances through to the late 1960s, and finally, to more recent theoretical work. Intended mainly for students and teachers of astronomy, this book will also be a useful reference for practicing astronomers and scientifically curious general readers.

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Contents

The Age of Myths and Speculations
1
11 Ancient Egypt and the Middle East
2
The Eastern Greek School
4
The Western Greek School
6
14 The Athenian Period
7
15 The Alexandrian Period
12
16 From the Dark Age to the Renaissance
16
17 The Emergence of Modern Astronomy
22
46 The Pulsation Theory of Variable Stars II
120
47 The Early Studies of Stellar Rotation
123
48 Solar and Stellar Hydrodynamics
128
The Golden Age 19401970
133
51 Nuclear Reactions and Energy Production in Stars
135
52 Calculation of Stellar Structure
143
53 A Brief Survey of Stellar Evolution
147
54 Postgiant Evolution and Stellar Remnants
156

Three Centuries of Optical Discoveries 16101910
29
21 Distances to the Sun and the Stars
30
22 The Beginnings of Spectroscopy
33
23 The Sun as a Star
40
24 Solar Activity and Rotation
43
25 Intrinsic Properties of Stars
47
26 Binary Stars and Stellar Masses
56
27 Variable and Unusual Stars
59
28 The Rise of Astrophysics
64
The Time of Pioneers 18401910
66
31 The Puzzle of the Suns Energy
67
32 The First Solar Models
73
33 The Pulsation Theory of Variable Stars 1
79
34 The DoubleStar Problem
81
35 Early Views of Stellar Evolution
84
36 Outline of Solar Activity and Rotation
88
The NineteenthCentury Advances
91
The Formative Years 19101940
94
41 The Beginnings of Quantitative Astrophysics
96
42 The StellarEnergy Problem
100
43 The Internal Structure of Stars
103
44 Pre1938 Views of Stellar Evolution
110
45 White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars
114
55 Evolution of Close Binary Stars
166
56 The Pulsation Theory of Variable Stars III
173
57 Stellar Rotation and Magnetic Fields
177
58 The Maturing of Solar Physics
183
The Era of Specialization 1970
192
61 Single Double and Multiple Stars
193
62 EarlyType Stars
202
63 The Sun
210
64 LateType Stars
220
65 The Pulsation Theory of Variable Stars IV
228
66 Final Stages of Stellar Evolution
234
Epilogue
247
Lanes Fully Convective Gas Spheres
250
Ritters Polytropic Gas Spheres
251
Ritters Theory of Pulsating Stars
252
Radial and Nonradial Stellar Pulsations
254
Bohrs Model of the Atom
257
Einsteins MassEnergy Relation
260
Three Important Nuclear Reactions
263
General Bibliography
265
Index of Names
269
Index of Subjects
277
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About the author (2004)

Jean-Louis and Monique Tassoul received the 2001 Paul and Marie Stroobant Prize of the Académie Royale de Belgique for their work on stellar rotation and stellar stability. From 1968 to 1993, Jean-Louis, whose books include Theory of Rotating Stars (Princeton), was a faculty member of the Physics Department at the Université de Montréal.

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