History of Astronomy - 18th to 20th Centuries

Contents

• The 18th and 19th Centuries
• The 20th Century
• Related Pages on this Website

The 18th and 19th Centuries

• Speed of Light - Describes how the speed of light was measured by Alwyn Botha.
• Mathematicians of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
• The World Great Mathematicians @ Hong Kong Baptist University, Scientific Computing Laboratory.
• Antoine de Lavoisier (1743-1794). Considered the father of modern chemistry. By Friends of Lavoisier in France.
• SEDS Messier Database
  Includes a biography of Charles Messier and a history, The Discovery of the Deep Sky Objects.
• A Brief History of Electronics, 1745 - 1820's
  Scientists working with the foundations of electricity. The Millennium Education Group, Dennis Ramsey.
• Eros - The discovery of asteroid's historical background NEAR mission.
• The Bath Preservation Trust Web-Site - Herschel Museum.
  The preserved home of William and Caroline Herschel.
• The World's (once) Largest Telescope: Lord Rosse and the Birr Castle Telescopes
• BBC - History - Revolutions in Science
• The Airy Transit Circle
• The Transit of Venus and the Quest for the Solar Parallax by David Sellers
• Ivars Peterson's MathTrek - Gauss's Orbits
  About the discovery of the asteroid Ceres and Gauss' calculations to determine its orbit.
• The discovery of Neptune:
• 150th anniversary of the discovery of the planet Neptune
• Neptune a radio program talk by Greg Bamford, Sept. 22, 1996, on Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s Ockham's Razor
• William Lassel and the discovery of Neptune.
• History of Mathematics @ Mac Tutor
• Mathematical Discovery of Planets
• Orbits & Gravitation
• Sky and Telescope -- Discovery of the Perseids Meteor Shower
• Meteoritics A brief history of the early science of meteorites. Meteorlab.Com.
• A Brief History of Comets I (until 1950) ESO.
• What is the history of solar physics? and Great Moments in Solar Physics @ About the Sun by the High Altitude Observatory
• History of Astronomical Spectroscopy @ Laser Stars
• Also see the website's references to Scientific Biographies and Quotations
• The Royal Institution of Great Britain has biographies of some prominent physicists who worked there.
• Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
• Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Fraunhofer Lines he discovered in the solar spectrum, @ Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Homepage.
• Johann Franz Encke - The Discovery of the Short Periodic Comets. Jens Dengler. Berlin, Germany.
• Norman Lockyer Observatory:
• Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer

• Osservatorio G.V. Schiaparelli - L'Astronomo Schiaparelli (in Italian)
• MARS by Percival Lowell
• Also see Les canaux de Mars - Histoire d'un mythe (in French)
• Is Mars Habitable? (1907) A Critical Examination of Professor Lowell's Book "Mars and Its Canals," With an Alternative Explanation by Alfred Russel Wallace
• Science in Poland - Albert Michelson Michelson-Interferometer.
• History of Electricity & Magnetism by Michael Fowler
• My book review of The Maxwellians Bruce J. Hunt.
• IEEE History Center - Lines and Waves Exhibit
• There are several website about the discovery of the electron in the Physics Page.
• History of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge
  Includes information about some of the key physicists: e.g., Maxwell, J.J. Thompson, Rutherford.
• Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College (1856-1876)
• Astronomical Figures - Charles Yerkes University of Chicago Magazine, February 1997.
• Simon Newcomb (1835-1909): Extent of the Universe 1884 Internet History of Science Sourcebook, Paul Halsall
• Science Museum, National Museum of Science and Technology, London, UK.
• Eclipse! -- The history of eclipse watching to the present day
• Treasures of the Science Museum
• Carmen Giunta's classic chemistry page
• Barry Malpas: Antique Astronomy Postcards
• Digital Archive of Historical Astronomy Pictures

The 20th Century

• 100 Years of Radioactivity History by Didier Verkindt.
• Neutrino History
• Women Astronomers At the Turn of the Century, 1880 - 1920
• Reaching for the Stars - A Century Ago, Women Astronomers at Harvard Made Scientific History Harvard Gazette, March 1998.
• SDSC - Women in Science
• Annie Jump Cannon- Theorist of Star Spectra
• Helen Sawyer Hogg- A Gift of Stars
• Contributions of Women to 20th Century Physics
• See Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
• The History of Mount Wilson Observatory
• Mount Hamilton Lick Observatory History
• UC Santa Cruz--University Library- Regional History Project
  has some oral histories about the Lick Observatory.
• Special sections for Relativity and Albert Einstein.
• Stars and Atoms 1926. By Arthur Eddington.
• Short biographies of The Bruce Medalists
  awards by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific since 1898; includes many prominent astronomers
• A Science Odyssey PBS mini-series.
  A number of pages about key 20th century discoveries and biographies, as well as some fun presentations.
• TIME Magazine 100- Scientists & Thinkers of the 20th Century March 29, 1999.
  Includes artilces about Hubble, Einstein, Goddard, Gödel and Fermi.
• NOVA Online/Einstein Revealed
• Niels Bohr Institute: NBI Today and previously.
  Briefly recounts some of the development of atomic physics and quantum mechanics.
• See Subramaniam Chandrasekar.
• 75th Anniversary Astronomical Debate
• The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery by William Sheehan (U of Arizona Press)
• For the discovery of Pluto see:
• Clyde Tombaugh
• The Planet Pluto
•  Jan Hendrik Oort - From Comets To The Universe
• Early History of Radio Astronomy NRAO
• Karl Jansky and the discovery of cosmic radio waves
• My Brother Karl Jansky and his Discovery of Radio Waves from Beyond Earth Cosmic Search Vol. 1, No. 4 - Fall 1979
• Listening to the Sun Australian Broadcasting Corp.
  Solar radio observing in 1952.
• Bell Labs now part of Lucent. Includes:
• Bell Laboratories History
• Penzias and Wilson's Discovery is One of the Century's Key Advances
• Arno Penzias' Homepage
• Detective Work Leads to Monument Honoring the Father of Radio Astronomy June 3, 1988 about Karl Jansky.
• Bell Labs Scientists Release First High-Resolution Images Of Cosmic Dark Matter Bell Labs news release about Anthony Tyson's work. Also see Dark Matter on the Specific Topics page.
• Caltech Archives Oral Histories Online - Interview with astronomer Jesse L. Greenstein PDF file.
  Abstract (from the website): Interview in three sessions in 1982 with Jesse L. Greenstein, DuBridge Professor of Astrophysics, emeritus. Greenstein discusses his early career at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, under Otto Struve (1937-1948), and his arrival at Caltech in 1948 to build an astronomy department in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy. He discusses the early partnership between Caltech and the Carnegie Institution of Washington in running Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, the interactions between observational astronomy and theoretical astrophysics, and the rise of radio astronomy. Besides his discussion of his work on stellar composition, the interview contains his recollections of such twentieth-century pioneers of astronomy and astrophysics as Struve, Grote Reber, Gerard Kuiper, Edwin Hubble, Fritz Zwicky, Walter Baade, Rudolph Minkowski, H. P. Robertson, Richard Tolman, and Fred Hoyle—and of various Caltech principals including Lee DuBridge, Earnest Watson, Arnold Beckman, and Robert Christy. He speculates about the scarcity of women astronomers and the difficulties they face. In an addendum to his interview, he discusses in more technical detail latter-day changes in instrumentation, the impact of new and improved detectors, and their contributions to his work on white dwarfs.
• Caltech Archives Oral Histories Online - Interview with Norman H. Horowitz
  In 1965 Dr. Horowitz became chief of JPL's Bioscience section. He created one of the biology experiments (the pyrolytic release experiment) on board the Viking Mars landers. He describes his graduate biology education at Cal Tech and Stanford, and then his experience at JPL. PDF file.
• The Fall of Parity - The Discovery that Parity is Not Conserved NIST Virtual Museum.
  A historical look at the 1956 discovery that there are physical processes in our universe that are biased in a left or right-handed way.
• Dream: History of Planetarium by Mark Chartrand, in IPS Planetarian, September 1973
• Little Green Men, White Dwarfs or Pulsars? by Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, about her discovery of Pulsars in 1967, Cosmic Search Vol. 1, No. 1 - January 1979
• Lyman Spitzer Jr.: 1914 - 1997 @ SolarNews: April 16 1997
• Chandra X-Ray Observatory - Xray Astronomy Field Guide (AXAF)
  Has some astronomy history related to x-ray astronomy.
• History of Cosmic Ray Studies @ Cosmic and Heliospheric Learning Center associated with the ACE spacecraft.
• A Brief History of High-Energy Astrophysics (NASA GSFC HEASARC)
• Brief History of Cosmology @ Cambridge Relativity
• Also see: A Brief History of Cosmology @ History of Mathematics @ Mac Tutor
• Extrasolar Planets "The Search for the Extrasolar Planets: A Brief History of the Search, the Findings and the Future Implications" by George H. Bell, @ Arizona State University
• Hubble Space Telescope- the development as seen in 1982
  A Scientific American article by John N. Bahcall and Lyman Spitzer, Jr.
• See Related Pages below. Also, historical aspects are often covered in some way on websites about 20th century-contemporary work. Be sure to check links listed under the your science subject on my other pages.
• Also see Relativity.
• Also see Related Sciences - Physics

Related Pages on this Website

• The history of space flight is on the Astronautics History Page.
• Space Missions Pages.
• Specific Research Topics Page has sections on Black Holes, Relativity, Cosmology, Gravitational Lensing, Dark Matter, and Extrasolar Planets.
• Astronomy by Wavelength.
• Related Science Links.
  Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Atmospheric Science, Engineering.
• My Radio Bookmarks page has a Radio History section.
• Time & Navigation
• Astronomers in Their Own Words
• Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific advanced articles and obituary articles.
• My Intermediate Astronomy Book Suggestions
• Biographies Page.
• Technology and Math History related to Astronomy.