A Concise History of Solar and Stellar PhysicsPrinceton 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 |
265 | |
269 | |
277 | |
Other editions - View all
A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics Jean-Louis Tassoul,Monique Tassoul Limited preview - 2014 |
A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics Jean-Louis Tassoul,Monique Tassoul Limited preview - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
References to this book
L'univers dévoilé: une histoire de l'astronomie de 1910 à aujourd'hui James Lequeux No preview available - 2005 |