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A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics
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.
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.
304 pages, Paperback
First published July 6, 2004
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May 1, 2022
I think it ought to serve as a very good complimentary reference to a university course in astronomy with a module on stellar physics but for the hobbyist it's perhaps too technical and extensive.
Tassouls approaches the subject from the view of a theoretical phycisist, neither a chronicler of facts nor pure mathematics and succeeds quite well in presenting the feedback loop between model and observation and its trends. The description of the problem of the source of stellar energy and its history (nuclear processes replacing gravitational constraction as a mechanism) is perhaps the highlight of the book.
However not much effort is given to the details of the observational history running parallel to the development of models and the reader needs to already be familiar with the objects being discussed (spectral classes, stellar types, thermodynamic terminology) to make much headway. I had for example hoped for a more detailed discussion of the character of lines in the stellar spectra and stellar classification but found very little on that subject.
Tassouls approaches the subject from the view of a theoretical phycisist, neither a chronicler of facts nor pure mathematics and succeeds quite well in presenting the feedback loop between model and observation and its trends. The description of the problem of the source of stellar energy and its history (nuclear processes replacing gravitational constraction as a mechanism) is perhaps the highlight of the book.
However not much effort is given to the details of the observational history running parallel to the development of models and the reader needs to already be familiar with the objects being discussed (spectral classes, stellar types, thermodynamic terminology) to make much headway. I had for example hoped for a more detailed discussion of the character of lines in the stellar spectra and stellar classification but found very little on that subject.
Displaying 1 of 1 review