Civic Astronomy

Author : George Wise
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1402026781
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Civic Astronomy written by George Wise and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-11-07 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The founding of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, N.Y., in 1852 was a milestone in humanity's age-old quest to understand the heavens. As the best equipped astronomical observatory in the U.S. led by the first American to hold a Ph.D. in astronomy, Benjamin Apthorp Gould Jr., the observatory helped pioneer world-class astronomy in America. It also proclaimed Albany's status as a major national center of culture, knowledge and affluence. This book explores the story of the Dudley Observatory as a 150 year long episode in civic astronomy. The story ranges from a bitter civic controversy to a venture into space, from the banks of the Hudson River to the highlands of Argentina. It is a unique glimpse at a path not taken, a way of doing science once promising, now vanished. As discoveries by the Dudley Observatory's astronomers, especially its second director Lewis Boss, made significant contributions to the modern vision of our Milky Way galaxy as a rotating spiral of more than a million stars, the advance of astronomy left that little observatory behind.

Author : Andre Heck
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1402040563
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6 written by Andre Heck and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-10-14 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When I wasa child, growing up in South America,I often went camping in the wild and hence had direct access to the wondrous Southern sky; the Southern Cross was all mine at the time. Little did I know then that the study of the sky would take such a huge importance in my life, and that in the end astronomy and astrophysics would in many ways become my country and my religion. I have lived in several di?erent countries, and when asked my nationality, I am always very tempted to reply: astronomer. I started as a theorist, and my only dream in my youth was to spend nights thinking and calculating, with paper and pencil, and to have the impression by dawn that I had understood something new. So at the time astronomy was seen or dreamt by me as a solitary endeavour, with periodic encounters with my wise adviser and professors; it is this model that I adopted when doing my PhD work. My generation has lived through many revolutions of all kinds. Those in astronomy, I believe, remain particularly remarkable, and I am a true product of them. Now, I elect to live and work in large organizations, and to share my endeavours with many people. And I relish the series of Andr ́ e Heck on Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy, which help us recover our memories, reconstitute our own story, and read with glee about our neighbouring or far-away colleagues.

Author : Alexander C. MacDonald
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300219326
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Long Space Age written by Alexander C. MacDonald and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NASA insider highlights the current and historic roles of private enterprise in humanity s pursuit of spaceflight"

Author : Andrew Janiak
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199914117
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Space written by Andrew Janiak and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recurrent questions about space have dogged philosophers since ancient times. Can an ordinary person draw from his or her perceptions to say what space is? Or is it rather a technical concept that is only within the grasp of experts? Can geometry characterize the world in which we live? What is God's relation to space? In Ancient Greece, Euclid set out to define space by devising a codified set of axioms and associated theorems that were then passed down for centuries, thought by many philosophers to be the only sensible way of trying to fathom space. Centuries later, when Newton transformed the 'natural philosophy' of the seventeenth century into the physics of the eighteenth century, he placed the mathematical analysis of space, time, and motion at the center of his work. When Kant began to explore modern notions of 'idealism' and 'realism,' space played a central role. But the study of space was transformed forever when, in 1915, Einstein published his general theory of relativity, explaining that the world is not Euclidean after all. This volume chronicles the development of philosophical conceptions of space from early antiquity through the medieval period to the early modern era. The chapters describe the interactions at different moments in history between philosophy and various other disciplines, especially geometry, optics, and natural science more generally. Fascinating central figures from the history of mathematics, science and philosophy are discussed, including Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, Proclus, Ibn al-Haytham, Nicole Oresme, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant. As with other books in the series, shorter essays, or Reflections, enrich the volume by characterizing perspectives on space found in various disciplines including ecology, mathematics, sculpture, neuroscience, cultural geography, art history, and the history of science.

Author : Wayne Orchiston
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1402037244
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The New Astronomy: Opening the Electromagnetic Window and Expanding our View of Planet Earth written by Wayne Orchiston and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-01-17 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an unusual book, combining as it does papers on astrobiology, history of astronomy and sundials, but—after all—Woody Sullivan is an unusual man. In late 2003 I spent two fruitful and enjoyable months in the Astronomy Department at the University of Washington (UW) working on archival material accumulated over the decades by Woody, for a book we will co-author with Jessica Chapman on the early development of Australian astronomy. The only serious intellectual distraction I faced during this period was planning for an IAU colloquium on transits of Venus scheduled for June 2004 in England, where I was down to present the ‘Cook’ paper. I knew Woody was also interested in transits (and, indeed, anything remotely connected with shadows—see his paper on page 3), and in discussing the Preston meeting with him it transpired that his 60th birthday was timed to occur just one week later. This was where the seed of ‘Woodfest’ began to germinate. Why not invite friends and colleagues to join Woody in Seattle and celebrate this proud event? I put the idea to Woody and others at UW, they liked it, and ‘Woodfest’ was born.

Author : Stacey Solomone
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1461466903
Total Pages : 120 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book China’s Strategy in Space written by Stacey Solomone and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-12 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses why China is going into space and provides up- to-date information on all aspects of the Chinese Space Program in terms of launch vehicles, launch sites and infrastructure, crew vehicles for space exploration, satellite applications and scientific exploration capabilities. Beyond mere capabilities, it is important to understand how Chinese aerospace leaders think, how they make decisions, and what their ultimate goal is during their space endeavors. What are Chinese intentions in space? To what extent does culture and ethics influence Chinese strategic decision-making within the highest levels of the aerospace industrial complex? This book examines these questions and offers four potential scenarios on where the Chinese space program is headed based on this new perspective of understanding China’s space goals. This book is not only required reading for policy makers and military leaders in the US government, but also for the general population, students, and professionals interested in truly understanding the reasons behind what the Chinese are doing in space.

Author : Dale DeBakcsy
Publisher : Pen and Sword History
ISBN 13 : 1399045369
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A History of Women in Astronomy and Space Exploration written by Dale DeBakcsy and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the last four hundred years, women have played a part far in excess of their numerical representation in the history of astronomical research and discovery. It was a woman who gave us our first tool for measuring the distances between stars, and another who told us for the first time what those stars were made of. It was women who first noticed the rhythmic noise of a pulsar, the temperature discrepancy that announced the existence of white dwarf stars, and the irregularities in galactic motion that informed us that the universe we see might be only a small part of the universe that exists. And yet, in spite of the magnitude of their achievements, for centuries women were treated as essentially second class citizens within the astronomical community, contained in back rooms, forbidden from communicating with their male colleagues, provided with repetitive and menial tasks, and paid starvation wages. This book tells the tale of how, in spite of all those impediments, women managed, by sheer determination and genius, to unlock the secrets of the night sky. It is the story of some of science's most hallowed names - Maria Mitchell, Caroline Herschel, Vera Rubin, Nancy Grace Roman, and Jocelyn Bell-Burnell - and also the story of scientists whose accomplishments were great, but whose names have faded through lack of use - Queen Seondeok of Korea, who built an observatory in the 7th century that still stands today, Wang Zhenyi, who brought heliocentrism to China, Margaret Huggins, who perfected the techniques that allowed us to photograph stellar spectra and thereby completely changed the direction of modern astronomy, and Hisako Koyama, whose multi-decade study of the sun's surface is as impressive a feat of steadfast scientific dedication as it is a rigorous and valuable treasure trove of solar data. A History of Women in Astronomy and Space Exploration is not only a book, however, of those who study space, but of those who have ventured into it, from the fabled Mercury 13, whose attempt to join the American space program was ultimately foiled by betrayal from within, to mythical figures like Kathryn Sullivan and Sally Ride, who were not only pioneering space explorers, but scientific researchers and engineers in their own rights, aided in their work by scientists like Mamta Patel Nagaraja, who studied the effects of space upon the human body, and computer programmers like Marianne Dyson, whose simulations prepared astronauts for every possible catastrophe that can occur in space. Told through over 130 stories spanning four thousand years of humanity's attempt to understand its place in the cosmos, A History of Women in Astronomy and Space Exploration brings us at last the full tale of women's evolution from instrument makers and calculators to the theorists, administrators, and explorers who have, while receiving astonishingly little in return, given us, quite literally, the universe.

Author : David Carr
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1591587700
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Open Conversations written by David Carr and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural institutions must reimagine their roles as education facilities for their communities and address the public need for conversations in safe and fair places, thereby renewing their essential place in democratic society. This book explains how. Open Conversations: Public Learning in Libraries and Museums is a provocative book, one that is designed to offer courage to cultural institution administrators and staff even as it opens their eyes to the possibility that their facilities can offer more than they are. Rather than offering prescriptive answers, the author invites readers to consider museums and libraries in fresh ways. Author David Carr believes professionals in libraries and museums need to think more broadly. He challenges them to address communities, national social change, psychology, and learning, and to think about ways to frame their institutions, not as repositories or research chambers, but as instruments for human thinking. Now is the time for these institutions to recover their integrity and purpose as fundamental, informing structures in a struggling democracy. Based on lectures and previously published writings by the author, and drawing on new scholarship and research, the essays here will inspire professionals to understand their collections and institutions as instruments of personal, social, and cultural change.

Author : W. Patrick McCray
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691128545
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Keep Watching the Skies! written by W. Patrick McCray and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-21 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the launch of Sputnik, thousands of ordinary Americans became "Moonwatchers," a network of citizen-scientists who helped professional astronomers by providing critical and otherwise unavailable information about the first satellites.

Author : Clive L.N. Ruggles
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1851096167
Total Pages : 549 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Astronomy written by Clive L.N. Ruggles and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-10-21 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative introduction to the fascinating topic of archaeoastronomy—ancient peoples' understanding and use of the skies. Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth draws on archaeological evidence and oral traditions to reveal how prehistoric humans perceived the skies and celestial phenomena. With over 200 entries, it offers a number of ways to approach ancient astronomy, from key examples and case studies worldwide (Stonehenge; Mexican and Egyptian pyramids; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; the Nazca lines in Peru) to general themes (cosmologies, calendars, ancient ideas of space and time, origin myths), to fundamental concepts and methods (how the sky has changed over the centuries, how to survey a site), and to the field's most frequently asked questions (How did ancient peoples navigate the ocean using the stars? How does astrology relate to ancient astronomy? Can ancient sites be dated astronomically?) By revealing the astronomical significance of some of the world's most famous ancient landmarks and enduring myths and by showing how different themes and concepts are connected, Ancient Astronomy: An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth brings a unique authoritative perspective to an area too often left to speculation and sensationalism.