A HISTORYOF ASTRONOMYA.PANNEKOEK

" ... a carefully reasoned history of astronomy ... c1early the work of a man wholoved his subject,"-The Times (London) Literary Supplement

Few histories of astronomy offer the special human dimension of this book. For thelate Professor Pannekoek (University of Amsterdam), the history of astronomyconsisted in the growth of rnan's concept of his world. The study of the cosmosbecame an essential part of the history of human culture, an advent ure of the mind.

In this well-balanced account of that adventure, the author is at pains to relate thedevelopment of astronomy to the social and cultural background in which it isnurtured. Thus, the effect of changes in political conditions, the influence ofgeography, the growth of industry and of communications methods are c1early andincisively described.

Dr. Pannekoek begins with an unusually detailed account of astronomy in ancienttimes, including Babylonian sky-lore, Assyrian astrology, the Ptolemaic world-view, Hellenistic astronomy, the epicycle theory, and Arabian astronomy. Thegrowth of astronomy after Copernicus comprises the second part of the book,acquainting the reader with the epoch-making work of Kepler and Newton and theastonishing developments of celestial mechanics during the eighteenth century.Part III begins with Herschel, the gifted amateur whose observations opened upnew horizons, and ends with Eddington's pioneering studies of the internalconstitution of stars.

Comprehensive, well-written and full of smalI, revealing details that.attest .to thescope and depth of the author' s learning, th is splendid survey belongs m the libraryof every astronomer-or anyone interested in the grand mystery of the cosmos andrnan's attempts to penetrate it.

Unabridged, unaltered Dover (1989) republication of the edition pu?lished byAllen & Unwin, 1961. (Originally published in Dutc? by We~eld-Blbhotheek,Amsterdam, 1951.) Introduetion. References. Appendices. 42 Figures. 24 black-and-white photographs. 521pp. 5~ x 8~. Paperbound.

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A HISTORY OfASTRONOMY

A. PANNEKOEK

A HI§TORY OFA§TRONOMY

ILLUSTRATED

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.NEWYORK

CONTENTS

lNTRODUCTI0N

PART ONE: ASTRONOMY IN THEANCIENT WORLD

Copyright © 1961 by George Allen and Unwin Ltd.All rights reserved under Pan American and International

Copyright Conventiens.

Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Omario.

Published in the United Kingdom by Constabie and Company,Ltd.

I. Life and the Stars2. Agriculture and the Calendar3. Old Babylonian Sky-Lore4. Assyrian Astrology5. New-Babylonian Science6. Chaldean Tables7. Egypt8. China9. Greek Poets and Philosophers

10. Calendar and GeometryI I. Systems of World Structure12. Hellenistic Astronomy13. The Epicycle Theory14. The Close of Antiquity15. Arabian Astronomy

This Dover edition. Iirst published in 1989, is an unabridgedand unaltered republication of the work Iirst published by GeorgeAllen & Unwin Ltd., London, in 1961. It is reprirued by specialarrangement with Unwin Hyman Ltd., 15-17 Broadwick Street,London WI V IFP. Theoriginal Dutch edition, De Groei van onsWereldbeeld, was Iirst published in 1951 by Wereld-Bibliotheek,Amsterdam.

Manufactured in the United States of AmericaDover Publications, Ine., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, .Y.

11501.

PART Two: ASTRONOMY INREVOLUTION

16. Dark Europe17. The Renascence of Science18. Copernicus19. AstronoInical Computing20. Tycho Brahe2 I. The Reform of the Calendar22. The Struggle over the World System23. Kepler24. Mechanics and Philosophy25, The Telescope26. Newton27. Practical Astronomy28. Astronomers on the Move29. Refined Practice30. Refined Theory

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pannekoek, Anion, 1873-1960.[Groei van ons wereldbeeld. English]A hisiory of astronorny / A. Pannekoek.

p. cm.Translation of: De groei van ons wereldbeeld.Bibliography: p.Incl udes index.ISBN 0-486-65994-1I. Astronomy-History. 1. Title.

QBI5P283131989520'.9-dc20 89-7794

CIP

page 13

192328364863828695

106

113122

133145164

173178188199204217222

235245253261

276282289297

PART THREE: ASTRONOMY SURVEYINGTHE UNIVERSE

ILLUSTRATIONSCONTENTS

3I. The World Widens32. The Technical Basis33. Distances and Dimensions34. Celestial Mechanics35. Plurality ofWorlds36. Cosmogony and Evolution37. The Sun38. Passing Luminaries39. Peculiar Stars40. Common Stars41. The Galactie System42. Into Endless Space43· The Life of the Stars

APPENDICESREPERENCESINDEX

497502507

I. The Assyrian Tablet, K725 facing page 160Chinese Star Map

2. The Constellations on the Farnese Atlas 1613. Copernicus 192

Tycho Brahe4· Galileo 193

Two drawings of the moon by Galileo5. Johannes Kepler 256

Christiaan Huygens6. Picard's Zenithsector 257

Huygens' tubeless telescopeHevelius and his QuadrantHevelius' map of the full moon

7. Isaac Newton 288J ames Bradley

8. Toplift: Römer's meridian instrument 289Right: Bird's QuadrantLeft: The Paris Observatory

9. TopLeft: William Herschel 320Right: Herschel's eo-foot telescopeLeft: Herschel's section of the Milky Way

10. Lift: Reichenbach's meridian circle 321Right: Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

I I. The Hyginus Crater and its surroundings 35212. Drawings of Mars 35313. Sections of the solar spectrum 38414. Donati's Cornet, 1858 385

Donati's Cornet, enlargedMorehouse's Cornet

15. Part of Orion, extrafocal exposure 416Doubling of the K line in {3AurigaSpectra by W. Huggins

16. Constellation of Orion by Argelander 416-417Constellation of Orion by Bayer

17. Huggins' first ultra-violet stellar spectra 416-417Types of star spectra according to A. Secchi

311321339351371394403419429444467483491

\

ILLUSTRATIONS

18. Harvard types of stellar spectra19. Sir Arthur Eddington20. Telescopic stars in the Belt of Orion21. Milky Way; Cygnus22. The Andromeda Nebula23. Radial speeds of nebulae24. The Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope

facing page 417448

448-449448-449

449480481

INTRODUCTION

ASTRONOMICAL science originated in a much earlier period ofhumanhistory than the other natural sciences. In the remote past, whenpractical knowledge in daily life and work had not yet led to a syste-matic study of physics and chemistry, astronomy was already a highly-developed science. This antiquity determines the special place whichastronomy has occupied in the history of human culture. The otherrealms of knowledge developed into sciencesonly in later centuries andthis development took place mainly within the walls of universities andlaboratories, where the noise of political and social strife seldompenetrated. Astronomy, on the contrary, had already manifested itselfin the ancient world as a system of theoretical knowledge that enabledman to prophesy even the terrifying eclipsesand had become a factor inhis spiritual strife.

This history is associated with the process of the growth of mankindsince the rise of civilization and, to a great extent, belongs to times inwhich society and the individual, labour and rite, science and religion,still formed undivided entities. In the ancient world and in the followingcenturies astronomical doctrine was an essential element in the worldconcepts, at once religious and philosophical, which reflected sociallife.When the modern physicist looks back at his earliest predecessors, hefinds men like himself, with similar though more primitive views onexperiment and conclusion, on cause and effect. When the astronomerlooks back at his predecessors, he finds Babylonian priests and magi-cians, Greek philosophers, Mohammedan princes, medieval monks,Renaissance nobles and clerics-until in the scholars of the seventeenthcentury he meets with modern citizens ofhis own kind. To all these menastronomy was not a limited branch of specialist science but a worldsystem interwoven with the whole of their concept of life. Not the tra-ditional tasksofa professionalguild but the deepest problems ofhumanityinspired their work.

The history of astronomy is the growth ofman's concept ofhis world.He always instinctively felt that the heavens above were the souree andessence of his life in a deeper sense than the earth beneath. Light andwarmth came from heaven. There the sun and the other celestialluminaries described their orbits; there dwelt the gods who ruled overhis destiny and wrote their messagesin the stars. The heavens were nearand the stars played their part in the life of man. The study ofthe starswas the unfolding of this higher werld, the noblest object that humanthinking and spiritual effort could find.

This study, continued through many centuries, and even in antiquity,

INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

Through technical applications they revolutionized societyand changedthe aspect of the earth. In this revolution astronomy stood aside. Thestars cannot contribute to our techniques, our material life, or oureconomie organization. So their study became more and more anidealistic pursuit tending toward a physical knowledge of the universe.While the other scienceswon brilliant triumphs in a transformation ofthe human world, the study of astronomy became a work of culture, anadventure of the mind. lts history thus remains what it has alwaysbeen, an essential part in the history of human culture.

Whoever penetrates into the past participates in the development ofthe human race as his own experience. It is the aim of this work tounfold in this past the development of our astronomical world conceptas a manifestation ofhumanity's growth.

taught two things: the periodic recurrence of celestial phenomena andthe vastness of the universe. Within the all-eneempassing celestialsphere with its stars, the earth, though for man the centre and chiefobject, was only a sma11dark globe. Other world bodies-sun, moon andplanets, someofthem oflarger size-circulated around her. This was theworld concept which, when the ancient world co11apsedand sciencefeIlinto a depression lasting a thousand years, was kept as a heritage and atthe end of the Middle Ages was transmitted to the rising West-European culture.

There, in the sixteenth century, driven by astrong social develop-ment, astronomy gave rise to a new concept of the world. It disclosedthat what seemed the most certain knowledge of the foundation of ourlife-the immobility of the earth-was merely an appearance. It showedmoreover, that our earth was only one of several similar planets, alIrevolving about the sun. Beyond was endless space with the stars asother suns. It was a revolution, opening new ways of thinking. Withhard effort and much strife mankind had to reorientate itself in itsworld. In those centuries of revolution the contest over astronomicaltruth was an important element in the spiritual struggle accompanyingthe great social upheavals.

Astronomy, like the study of nature in general, now entered a newera. The next century brought the discovery of the fundamentallawcontrolling a11motions in the universe. Philosophical thinking was forthe first time confronted with an exact and strict law of nature. The oldmystical, astrological conneetion between the heavenly bodies and manwas replaced by the all-pervading mechanical action of gravitation.

Then, at last, in the modem age ofscience, the concept of the universewidened to ever larger dimensions, expressibleonly in numbers, againstwhich to speak of the sma11nessof the earth is a meaningless phrase.Again--or stilI-astronomy is the science of the totality of the universe,though now merely in a spatial sense.Whereas in the ancient world theidea of the unity of the heavenly and the human worlds exalted thehearts of the students of nature, now men are stirred by the proudconsciousnessof the power of the human mind, which from our smalIdwelling place is able to reach up to the remotest steIlar systems.

In early times, when physical theory was but abstract speculation,astronomy was already an ordered system ofknowledge giving practicalorientation in time and space. In later centuries, astronomical researchwas directed more and more towards theoretical knowledge of thestructure of the universe, far beyond any practical application, tosatisfythe eraving for truth, i.e. for intellectual beauty. Then the mutualrelation of the sciencesbêcame the opposite of what it had been before.Physics, chemistry, and biology shot up with increasing rapidity.

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