Physical Astronomy Research Articles

The Paris Observatory

The Paris Observatory is the oldest astronomical observatory that has operated continuously from its creation in 1667 to today. It was closely followed in 1675 by the Greenwich Observatory, which was closed in 1998 and turned into a museum. In 1926, Paris Observatory absorbed the Observatory of Physical Astronomy of Meudon, and created in 1953 a radio astronomy station in Nançay, so that it now operates on three different sites. We retrace its 350-years history here.

LIFE AT MEUDON OBSERVATORY, 1876-1963

Meudon Observatory was created for Janssen in 1876 for physical astronomy, as a reaction to the conservative Paris Observatory. It merged in 1927 with this observatory, while keeping in practice some autonomy. It was very well equipped, with a great equatorial, a 1-m reflecting telescope and several novel solar instruments, but except for the latter they were not very much used due to lack of personnel and because of technical deficiencies. A modern equatorial table was installed in 1931 and became the main non-solar instrument. A physics laboratory had been installed from the beginning, producing data useful for astronomy; it was the responsibility of a 'Physicist of the Observatory'. In this paper, I describe the life at Meudon until the arrival of radio astronomers in 1956 and the nomination in 1963 of a radio astronomer as director, events that produced considerable changes in Meudon Observatory.

Mathematical analysis and physical astronomy in Great Britain and Ireland, 1790-1831 : some new light on the French connection

Mathematical analysis and physical astronomy in Great Britain and Ireland, 1790-1831 : some new light on the French connection

Maxwell's color statistics: From reduction of visible errors to reduction to invisible molecules

This paper presents a cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary account of Maxwell's introduction of statistical models of molecules for the composition of gases. The account focuses on Maxwell's deployment of statistical models of data in his contemporaneous color researches as established in Cambridge mathematical physics, especially by Maxwell's seniors and mentors. The paper also argues that the cross-disciplinary, or cross-domain, transfer of resources from the natural and social sciences took place in both directions and relied on the complex intra-disciplinary, or intra-domain, dynamics of Maxwell's researches in natural sciences, in color theory, physical astronomy, electromagnetism and dynamical theory of gases, as well as involving a variety of types of communicating and mediating media, from material objects to concepts, techniques and institutions.

Charles Michie Smith - founder of the Kodaikanal (Solar Physics) Observatory and beginnings of physical astronomy in India

It has been about 115 years since the establishment of Kodaikanal Observatory as an extension of the original Madras Observatory, which has evolved into the present Indian Institute of Astrophysics at Bangalore. It is also the first mountain observatory in India. Charles Michie Smith was the man who selected the site, established the observatory and directed it for the first 12 years. He was also the man who recruited John Evershed, discoverer of the famous Evershed effect and established Kodaikanal Observatory as a major centre for solar physics. Michie Smith, the person and the establishment of Kodaikanal Observatory are discussed here in the context of the early studies in physical astronomy (observational astrophysics) in India.

Schopenhauer y el problema del movimiento: voluntad y causalidad. Un comentario al capítulo Astronomía física de Sobre la voluntad en la naturaleza

The text “Physical Astronomy” presents the central idea of Schopenhauer philosophy, expressed in movement terms. Dealing with this problem of movement at its origin, we can observe important resemblances between philosophers like Thales of Miletus and our author. All in all, Schopenhauer suggests that there are not two origins of the movement, one internal and own, which belongs to the man, and other external and causal, which acts in the rest of the things, but an only source of movement that joins the both properties and which appears equally in every being. This idea breaks down the barrier between human and natural things, and according to the first philosophers we can say that “all is one”.

Book Review: Nineteenth-Century Observatories in Context: The Heavens on Earth: Observatories and Astronomy in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture

NINETEENTH-CENTURY OBSERVATORIES IN CONTEXT The Heavens on Earth: Observatories and Astronomy in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture. Edited by David Aubin, Charlotte Bigg, and H. Otto Sibum (Duke University Press, Durham, 2010). Pp. xii + 384. $23.95 (paperback). ISBN 9780-8223-4640-1.What is an astronomical observatory? What role did such institutions play in nineteenth-century scientific, economic, social, and cultural life? It is well known that observatories are privileged sites for astronomical observation. But as this book suggests, they also must be understood as settings where heavenly and earthly concerns closely interact.The contributors of this edited volume emphasize different sets of physical, methodological, and social techniques - presented as observatory techniques - that proved crucial for developing political and cultural narratives. For example, in his study of the Pulkovo Observatory, Simon Werret shows how the institution, in addition to helping manage a vast territory, was designed to impress Western audiences, not unlike a theatre where specific manners and traditions are represented. Likewise, David Aubin's study treats astronomy as a key element in the building of identities by examining the eclipse of 1 868 and the construction of Thailand's national identity.Central to this volume is the claim that observatory techniques were crucial for the construction and modernization of Western nation-states. Massimo Mazzotti offers an enlightening discussion of how Secchi's shift from positional astronomy to physical astronomy and meteorology at the observatory of the Collegio Romano was essential in the pontifical modernization project as well as in the construction of Rome as a supranational city. Sven Widmalm's chapter shows how nineteenth-century military cartography in Sweden helped define the modern nation-state by using an informational infrastructure for military and social control and reform. Martina Schiavon examines geodesy and mapmaking in France and Algeria, arguing that the conceptual resources and material from observatories were particularly significant for military practice as well as for administrating and controlling territories. And Simon Schaffer argues that colonial observatories such as Paramatta became important elements in imperial systems of government and that observatory techniques were used to exemplify utilitarian governance and rationalist politics in colonial administration.A second theme is the role of the observatory in the culture of precision and universal standards that transformed scientific practices in the nineteenth century. The success of astronomy stimulated scientific research and the observatory became a model institution. In demonstrating bonds between astronomy and other disciplines, Richard Staley presents an account of Michelson's contributions to the observatory and describes how his experimental program was developed within a framework set primarily by astronomical concerns. …

The Heavens on Earth: Observatories and Astronomy in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture (review)

Reviewed by: The Heavens on Earth: Observatories and Astronomy in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture Pamela Gossin (bio) The Heavens on Earth: Observatories and Astronomy in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture, edited by David Aubin, Charlotte Bigg, and H. Otto Sibum; pp. xii + 384. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010, $94.95, $24.95 paper, 71.00, 16.99 paper. The work of scholarly editing rarely receives adequate recognition for the fully creative intellectual contributions it makes. Too often it is assumed that the thankless tasks of [End Page 770] critically annotating a key primary text or collecting thematically or topically related essays are—or should be—their own reward. To make such an assumption in the case of this volume, however, would do an immense disservice to the extraordinary skills and insights of these editors and the overall achievement of their final product. In crafting this collection, this well-tuned team of editors never hits a sour note. The apt title serves as a recurrent aesthetic motif as well as a guiding methodological principle and deeply integrated conceptual framework throughout. The diversity of voices represented by the contributors harmoniously matches that of their nineteenth-century subject matter—the people, places, things, and ideas within and surrounding observatory life—not just within the expected contexts of Britain and America, but in Algeria, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden, and Thailand. The masterful introduction provides a cogent mapping of the collection's contents in relation to its organizational framework. The substantive history-of-science-style footnotes enrich the professional utility and pedagogical value of each chapter, while the bibliography and index reflect the greater and interconnected sum of the parts. Over sixty illustrations and photographs bring to visual life a full range of principal players and their instruments, architectural spaces and settings, and the observation and graphical recording of astronomical, meteorological, and geodesic phenomena for a variety of audiences. As the introduction makes clear, one central purpose of this volume is to dismantle our conventional image of what observatories do and are; it rebuilds our conceptualization brick by brick, emphasizing the multiple roles such spaces played within science, politics, economics, and culture, not the least of which was constructing elements of the "modern western state and society" (2). Our traditional sense of what observatories observed is expanded to include not only heavenly bodies (moon, stars, planets, sun) but also more down-to-earth subjects such as weather, geography, geodesy, geomagnetism, and navigational phenomena. We also gain a more nuanced understanding of the nature of observational science itself, the problematic complexities of developing and employing precision techniques, the gathering and analysis of sensory evidence, and the difficulties of quantifying perception. In several senses, observatories functioned as "representation factor[ies]" (20), developing imaging technologies, interpreting and disseminating their findings, and contributing to and distributing powerful cosmological narratives. Across the nineteenth-century globe, observatories were part lecture hall, part theater, part political stage, demonstrating the many levels upon which the cosmos itself was "contested territory" (24). The first two essays offer intriguing complements to the relatively familiar story of how imperial power and astronomy played out at Greenwich. Simon Werrett describes how the personal enthusiasms of Emperor Nicholas I—"surveillance and spectacle" (52)—shaped the Pulkovo observatory near St. Petersburg into an apparent model of European prestige and scientific patronage that supported a show of military order and control. Massimo Mazzotti offers a complex account of how Angelo Secchi's program of physical astronomy (proto-astrophysics) at the pontifical observatory at the Collegio Romano generated a strong cosmological narrative. The program was supportive of the omnipotence and freedom of the Creator, and was, after 1870, variously appropriated into the processes and narratives of Italian national identity and nation building. The volatile dynamic between individual vision and political forces [End Page 771] also figures strongly in David Aubin's fascinating explication of eclipse politics in France and Thailand, and in Simon Schaffer's poignant morality tale of the fate of the observers and observatory at Paramatta. Another important thematic cluster—Guy Boistel on France, Sven Widmalm on Sweden, and Martina Schiavon on France and Algeria—considers the interrelation of astronomical observatory work with naval...

MicroReviews by the Book Review Editor: Kepler's Physical Astronomy: Bruce Stephenson

MicroReviews by the Book Review Editor: <i>Kepler's Physical Astronomy</i>: Bruce Stephenson

Colors of Eclipses in Medieval Hebrew Astronomical Tables

Medieval interest in physical astronomy has been relatively neglected compared to positional astronomy. In this paper tables for colors of solar and lunar eclipses in Hebrew manuscripts are examined, and it is argued that they all depend on a tradition which came to the Islamic world from India. Some of these tables are in Arabic written in Hebrew characters. This tradition continued in the Latin West and is represented in the editio princeps of the Alfonsine Tables, published in 1483.

Colors of Eclipses in Medieval Hebrew Astronomical Tables

Medieval interest in physical astronomy has been relatively neglected compared to positional astronomy. In this paper tables for colors of solar and lunar eclipses in Hebrew manuscripts are examined, and it is argued that they all depend on a tradition which came to the Islamic world from India. Some of these tables are in Arabic written in Hebrew characters. This tradition continued in the Latin West and is represented in the editio princeps of the Alfonsine Tables, published in 1483.

Rings in a Fluid Heaven: The Equatorium-Driven Physical Astronomy of Guido de Marchia (fl. 1292-1310)

CentaurusVolume 45, Issue 1-4 p. 175-203 Rings in a Fluid Heaven: The Equatorium-Driven Physical Astronomy of Guido de Marchia (fl. 1292–1310) Michael H. Shank, Michael H. ShankSearch for more papers by this author Michael H. Shank, Michael H. ShankSearch for more papers by this author First published: 27 January 2004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0498.2003.450116.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume45, Issue1-4December 2003Pages 175-203 This article also appears in:History of Early Astronomy RelatedInformation

Reviews . A collection of geophysics texts, physical astronomy and a great US observatory.

Reviews . A collection of geophysics texts, physical astronomy and a great US observatory.

Zu Kepplers Conchoid-Konstruktion

The physical models introduced by Johannes Keppler into astronomy were not only much more accurate than their predecessors, they were innovative theoretically to such an extent that they stand quite alone. The conchoid construction he presented in his ”Astronomia Nova” (1609) seems to have almost escaped notice in the literature. A misguided and sometimes unwitting interpretation of Keppler’s physical astronomy as a precursor to Newton’s celestial mechanics has impeded any fair analysis of it. Keppler’s physics is a physics of phases and frequencies, as Newton’s is a physics of accelerations. The purpose of this paper is to outline the impact of Keppler’s conchoid construction. His dynamical approach which is a profoundly original filter bank construction has found recently an unexpected revelation in magnetic resonance tomography.

Robust, locally stable, measurement error regression methods

Robust, equivariant, locally stable, measurement error (ME) techniques for estimating parameters in regression models are developed and compared with other robust methods which do not combine high resistance with local stability. Examples from physical chemistry and astronomy are used to illustrate the techniques.

A Lunar-Base Lab for Geology or Astronomy Courses

Based on long-term economic and technological trends, it is likely that lunar bases and related space activities will be a prominent feature of the early 21st century. The lunar-base lab featured here uniquely introduces students to the key elements of lunar geology by immersing them in the excitement of planning humanity's future on the Moon. Five (or more) candidate sites for a permanent lunar base are evaluated based on a simple scoring system that focuses on science, resource, and operations (SRO) characteristics of each site. The SRO criteria introduce students to cratering, volcanism, landforms, sampling strategies, volatile/mineral potential, sunlight and temperature cycles, orbital access, astronomy plans, and specific geologic units on the Moon. Ultimately, each candidate site receives an SRO numerical ranking. One important result of this exercise is that it stimulates discussions about lunar science in general and its importance for the future exploration and settlement of the Moon. This lab has been very popular with students in introductory college courses in both physical geology and astronomy.

The Physical Astronomy of Levi ben Gerson

Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344) was a medieval astronomer who responded in an unusual way to the Ptolemaic tradition. He significantly modified Ptolemy’s lunar and planetary theories, in part by appealing to physical reasoning. Moreover, he depended on his own observations, with instruments he invented, rather than on observations he found in literary sources. As a result of his close attention to the variation in apparent planetary sizes, a subject entirely absent from the Almagest, he discovered a new phenomenon of Mars and noticed a serious flaw in Ptolemy’s treatment of the Moon.

Kepler's Physical Astronomy , and: The Music of the Heavens: Kepler's Harmonic Astronomy (review)

Reviews 243 Stephenson, Bruce, Kepler's Physical Astronomy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, rpt. 1994; paper; viii, 216, 50 figures; R.R.P. US$16.95, £12.95. Stephenson, Bruce, The Music of the Heavens: Kepler's Harmonic Astronomy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994; cloth; pp. xii, 260; R.R.P. US$42.50, £30.00. A m o n g the major figures of the Scientific Revolution, no one was as prolix or complex as Johannes Kepler. Much of his voluminous writing has remained obscure because of the great difficulty modern scholars encounter in respect to both his language and his thought. It is the good fortune of historians of science that Bruce Stephenson now can serve as an expert guide through some of the densest parts of Kepler's cosmology and astronomy. Stephenson wrote Kepler's Physical Astronomy as his doctoral dissertation andfirstpublished it in 1987. Its successful reception led to this paperback edition. There seem to be no changes made, certainly none of any substance, in the new printing. The starting point of the book is the view that Kepler was the 'last great practitioner of the science of ancient astronomy' (p. 1). As such he served both as its culmination and its .termination. Kepler's work was the crowning achievement of ancient astronomy, among whose practitioners the author includes several of Kepler's recent predecessors such as Regimontanus and Copernicus himself. That discipline used geometrical models to predict the motion of the heavenly bodies w e now call the solar system, and Kepler was very much within that tradition when he formulated the laws of planetary motion, the achievement for which he gained permanent fame. Yet he also acted to undermine ancient astronomy by being thefirstto see astronomy as being part of physics, which required a physical explanation for the motion of the planets. Stephensonfirstexamines Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), which he finds to be still in the geometrical traditional of ancient astronomy, despite its advocacy of the heliocentric theory. Stephenson sees Copernicus, for all of his importance in the Scientific Revolution, as belonging to that tradition, because his support of a sun-centred universe was based on geometry, not physics. The author devotes most of his book, in an overlylong chapter of 116 pages, to Kepler's Astronomia Nova (1609). Stephenson argues that the astronomer broke new ground in it, not so much for its presentation of hisfirsttwo laws of planetary motion, the work's usual cause for mention in history of science textbooks, but for the attempt to fashion a 244 Reviews physical theory for the planets. Stephenson persuasively argues that Kepler was far more systematic and organised in Astronomia Nova than previous historians of science have seen him, such as Arthur Koestler, who used the term 'sleepwalking' to describe Kepler's mode of thought. Stephenson painstakingly follows the order of the book to lay out Kepler's goals: 'to demonstrate that the models used by all the astronomers were wrong, and that they could not be salvaged in any reasonable manner'; second, 'to develop his new astronomy, and show it to be accurate to the limits of the Tychonic observations';finally,'to argue that... his theories were much more likely to represent what was actually taking place in the heavens' (p. 22). The 'conquest of Mars', successfully fitting into his theory the motions of Mars, which had caused so much trouble for ancient astronomy, allowed Kepler to claim success. Stephenson turns more briefly to Kepler's Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae (1621), in which Kepler argued more explicitly for a 'dynamic physical astronomy centred on the sun' (p. 139). The physical force that produced the motion of the earth and the other planets around the sun was a type of planetaryfilament,similar to but not identical with magnetism. In this way Kepler anticipated Newton's law of universal gravitation in sensing that both mass and distance were factors in the strength of that force. In his first book Stephenson largely avoided any discussion of the more esoteric aspects of Kepler's work, which make him so difficult for m o d e m scholars to understand. In The Music of the Heavens, Stephenson tackles Kepler at...

The Graph of Sex and the German Text: Gendered Culture in Early Modern Germany 1500-1700 (review)

246 Reviews Stephenson realises that he has not produced in these two books a comprehensive study of Kepler's thought, but it is difficult to believe that anyone will be able or want to improve on his work on the two major topics he discusses. Still, one wishes that Kepler's Physical Astronomy in particular had been written with the reader more in mind. Its style probably betrays its origins as a dissertation. The Music of the Heavens has some of the same flaws, such as weighing down the book with chapters and sentences that are far too long; but it is easier to read and more comprehensible. That criticism aside, these two books make a major contribution to the study of Kepler and the Scientific Revolution. Frederic J. Baumgartner Department of History Virginia Polytechnic Institute Tatlock, Lynne, ed., The Graph of Sex and the German Text: Gendered Culture in Early Modem Germany 1500-1700 (Chloe Beihefte zum Daphnis, Band 19), Amsterdam and Atlanta, Rodopi, 1994; hardcover; pp. 453; 11figures;R.R.P. US$123.00 It is hard not to feel that German scholarship is a little behind the times. The articles assembled in this volume seek to 'explore the possibilities of gender as a category of analysis for study of early m o d e m German literature and culture' (p. 1). The potential of gender-based analysis has long been recognised in other disciplines. The tardiness of German scholars in comparison with those engaged in French and English studies for example, is acknowledged, somewhat disparagingly, in the articles by Sigrid Weigel and Merry E. Wiesner. However, the fact that it is overdue does not diminish the contribution of this diverse and exciting collection. The seventeen articles comprising the volume have been offered by experts in the area of early modern literature and culture and by scholars in thefieldof feminist theory. It is the result of a symposium held in Missouri in 1992. The papers, given in English or German, have been reproduced in their original language, to preserve the spirit of cross-cultural scholarship. Although all the essays are broadly focussed on issues of gendered identity, structures and processes, there is a diversity of approaches, perspectives and even definitions of gender that create a lively debate within the text itself. As Lynne Tatlock emphasises, discussion not unison is the aim of the exercise. And dispute is not to be ruled out! Reviews 247 The essays have been divided into four sections: the politics of gender; early m o d e m discourses of love and marriage; women, power and texts; and constructing sexual difference. Topics range from the persecution of witches to natural history, with an attempt made to plot the way in which masculine and feminine identities are reflected and indeed constructed in a range of texts. It is not possible to comment on all the articles here, but I hope the following brief overview will give a fair indication of the wealth of material and of thefruitfulinterplay between the texts, which is one of the most positive aspects of the work. The volume opens with Sigrid Weigel's article, 'Geschlechterdifferenz und Literaturwissenschaft' which establishes the context of current critical debate. She presents some of the paradoxes and problems facing those researching the history of women's literature. One such paradox confronts those trying to complete literary history by restoring 'lost' writings by women. In this archaeological enterprise, the processes of selection and ordering can lead to the exclusion of some texts and canonisation of others, the very categorisation that scholars are seeking to redress. Weigel proposes no solutions, merely stating that, in participating in the writing of literary history, w o m e n have lost their innocence. Weigel goes on to explore the relationship between the sexes as an emblem and allegory of cultural history. In establishing the interdisciplinary significance of gender difference in language, literature and culture, she sets the stage for the wideranging concerns of the articles that follow. Barbara Becker-Cantarino argues the rigidity of gender constructs in early m o d e m Germany, based on an analysis of the anonymous sixteenthcentury Historia von D. Johann Fausten and Grimmelhausen's...

WAVELETS IN HIGH-RESOLUTION RADAR IMAGING AND CLINICAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE TOMOGRAPHY

Coherent wavelets form a unified basis of the multichannel perfect reconstruction analysis-synthesis filter bank of high-resolution synthetic aperture radar SAR imaging and clinical magnetic resonance imaging MRI . The unitary filter bank construction is performed by the Kepplerian temporospatial Hilbert bundle strategy of physical astronomy, which allows stroboscopic and synchronous cross-sectional quadrature filtering of phase histories in contiguous local frequency encoding subband multichannels with respect to the rotating coordinate frame of quadrature reference. The Kepplerian temporospatial quadrature strategy and the associated unitary filter bank construction take place in symplectic affine planes and are implemented in the quadrature format of a phase-splitting network by Fourier analysis of the Heisenberg nilpotent Lie group G. The tomographic slices, frequency selected by the MRI scanner, are identified with the nontrivial coadjoint orbits of G. Thus the pathway of this paper leads from Keppler to Heisenberg and to the fascinating aspects of electronic engineering concerned with the implementation of the symmetries inherent to the semiclassical approach to clinical magnetic resonance tomography by large-scale integrated LSI circuit technology.