Starlight by Harlow Shapley

Suggest and discuss books to read (all languages welcome!)
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InTheDesert
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Joined: August 20th, 2019, 8:25 pm

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In this essay aji attempt is made to present the modern scientific vip-w of the place of man ari$ man's earth in the expanse of time and space revealed by discoveries of modern astronomy. Many of the matters discussed are of such recent development that textbooks do not include them; and in some of the fields considered the activity is so marked that ten years hence an essayist may consider the pres- ent treatment as obsolete as th'e essays of twen^v years ago now appear to us.
It is a fortunate characteristic of* astron- omy, perhaps because it is an old and familiar science, that its results and progress can be described in non-technical language. We are all familiar with much of its small special glossary, including such words as stellar and solar, nebula and galaxy, spectrum and spec- troscope, latitude and longitude. The tech- nicalities that have more recently crept in are mainly due to the astronomer's increasing use of the methods and vocabulary of the related sciences of physics, chemistry, geology, and statistics.
The fundamental simplicity in the ideas as well ,is in the language of astronomy will per- mit &, treatment of recent important scientific advances, even though this essay is designed primarily for the general reader and not in the least for the professional astronomer.
After making, in Part I, a general survey of the field, it is proposed to take up two of the most fascinating subjects of modern astronomy: the evolution of stars, including the origin of the earth and other planets; and the measurement of the dimensions of the stellar universe.
https://archive.org/details/starlight029242mbp/page/n11/mode/2up

Not PD outside US.
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