Exploring the Sun: Solar Science since Galileo

by Karl Hufbauer

Book by Hufbauer, Professor Karl

368 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1991

Reviews

[Brian Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s plenty of solar science in Karl Hufbauer’s Exploring the Sun: Solar Science since Galileo, but a major theme in this broad-sweeping overview is the gradual professionalization of the solar science community and how it has developed through insider & outsider influences. Hufbauer explains in the introduction to Part Two: “Since the beginning of World War II, solar research has evolved along so many different paths at the same time that there is a significant advantage to focusing on only a few lines of development. Doing so ensures that space is available for treating chronology, biography, patronage, and communication patterns with the sort of attention that distinguishes historical narratives from scientific review essays.” (p. 117) It’s a history book, not a science book. This is not a criticism. One could probably not ask for a better or more thorough recounting of the progress of solar science across four centuries of development. For a historian of 19th & 20th century science, Hufbauer drops hints of issues, investigations, and personalities that might warrant further exploration.