The Astronomer's Chair

The Astronomer's Chair

Author: Omar W. Nasim

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0262045532

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The astronomer’s observing chair as both image and object, and the story it tells about a particular kind of science and a particular view of history. The astronomer’s chair is a leitmotif in the history of astronomy, appearing in hundreds of drawings, prints, and photographs from a variety of sources. Nineteenth-century stargazers in particular seemed eager to display their observing chairs—task-specific, often mechanically adjustable observatory furniture designed for use in conjunction with telescopes. But what message did they mean to send with these images? In The Astronomer’s Chair, Omar W. Nasim considers these specialized chairs as both image and object, offering an original framework for linking visual and material cultures. Observing chairs, Nasim ingeniously argues, showcased and embodied forms of scientific labor, personae, and bodily practice that appealed to bourgeois sensibilities. Viewing image and object as connected parts of moral, epistemic, and visual economies of empire, Nasim shows that nineteenth-century science was represented in terms of comfort and energy, and that “manly” postures of Western astronomers at work in specialized chairs were contrasted pointedly with images of “effete” and cross-legged “Oriental” astronomers. Extending his historical analysis into the twentieth century, Nasim reexamines what he argues to be a famous descendant of the astronomer’s chair: Freud’s psychoanalytic couch, which directed observations not outward toward the stars but inward toward the stratified universe of the psyche. But whether in conjunction with the mind or the heavens, the observing chair was a point of entry designed for specialists that also portrayed widely held assumptions about who merited epistemic access to these realms in the first place. With more than 100 illustrations, many in color; flexibound.


The Decade of Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics

The Decade of Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1991-02-01

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 0309043816

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Astronomers and astrophysicists are making revolutionary advances in our understanding of planets, stars, galaxies, and even the structure of the universe itself. The Decade of Discovery presents a survey of this exciting field of science and offers a prioritized agenda for space- and ground-based research into the twenty-first century. The book presents specific recommendations, programs, and expenditure levels to meet the needs of the astronomy and astrophysics communities. Accessible to the interested lay reader, the book explores: The technological investments needed for instruments that will be built in the next century. The importance of the computer revolution to all aspects of astronomical research. The potential usefulness of the moon as an observatory site. Policy issues relevant to the funding of astronomy and the execution of astronomical projects. The Decade of Discovery will prove valuable to science policymakers, research administrators, scientists, and students in the physical sciences, and interested lay readers.


DK Eyewitness Books: Astronomy

DK Eyewitness Books: Astronomy

Author: Kristen Lippincott

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 075664349X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The most trusted nonfiction series on the market,Eyewitness Books provide an in-depth, comprehensive look at their subjects with a unique integration of words and pictures. DK's classic look at astronomy now reissued.


News from Mars

News from Mars

Author: Joshua Nall

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2019-08-13

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0822986612

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Mass media in the late nineteenth century was full of news from Mars. In the wake of Giovanni Schiaparelli’s 1877 discovery of enigmatic dark, straight lines on the red planet, astronomers and the public at large vigorously debated the possibility that it might be inhabited. As rivalling scientific practitioners looked to marshal allies and sway public opinion—through newspapers, periodicals, popular books, exhibitions, and encyclopaedias—they exposed disagreements over how the discipline of astronomy should be organized and how it should establish acceptable conventions of discourse. News from Mars provides a new account of this extraordinary episode in the history of astronomy, revealing how major transformations in astronomical practice across Britain and America were inextricably tied up with popular scientific culture and a transatlantic news economy that enabled knowledge to travel. As Joshua Nall argues, astronomers were journalists, too, eliding practice with communication in consequential ways. As writers and editors, they played a pivotal role in the emergence of a “new astronomy” dedicated to the study of the physical constitution and life history of celestial objects, blurring harsh distinctions between those who produced esoteric knowledge and those who disseminated it.


Academic Patronage in the Scottish Enlightenment

Academic Patronage in the Scottish Enlightenment

Author: Roger L. Emerson

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2008-04-29

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 0748631291

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book considers the politics of patronage appointments at the universities in Glasgow, Edinburgh and St Andrews, exploring the ways in which 388 men secured posts in three Scottish universities between 1690 and 1806. Most professors were political appointees vetted and supported by political factions and their leaders. This comprehensive study explores the improving agenda of political patrons and of those they served and relates this to the Scottish Enlightenment. Emerson argues that what was happening in Scotland was also occurring in other parts of Europe where, in relatively autonomous localities, elite patrons also shaped things as they wished them to be. The role of patronage in the Enlightenment is essential to any understanding of its origins and course.


Parallax

Parallax

Author: Alan W. Hirshfeld

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0486490939

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This lively and entertaining history of the long struggle to measure the distance to the stars will appeal to general readers as well as to amateur and professional astronomers. Readers will encounter fascinating historical characters, from ancient Greeks to 19th-century scientists. Well illustrated, with contemporary pictures plus extensive notes on further reading. 2002 edition.


Transactions of the International Astronomical Union

Transactions of the International Astronomical Union

Author: Immo Appenzeller

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 912

ISBN-13: 9400901631

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

IAU Transactions XXIIB summarizes the work of the XXIInd General Assembly. The discourses given during the Inaugural and Closing Ceremonies are reproduced in Chapters I and III, respectively. The proceedings of the two sessions of the General Assembly will be found in Chapter II, which includes the Resolutions and the report of the Finance Committee. The Statutes, Bye-Laws and a few working rules of the Union are published in Chapter IV. The Accounts and other aspects of the administration of the Union are recorded in Chapter V, together with the report of the Executive Committee for this last triennium, and provide the permanent record for the Union in the period 1991-1994. This volume also contains the Commission reports from The Hague compiled by the Presidents of the Commissions (Chapter VI). Finally, Chapter VII contains the list of countries adhering to the Union and the alphabetical, geographical and commission membership lists of about 8000 individual members. The IAU still appears to be unique among the scientific Unions in maintaining this category of individual membership which contributes in a crucial way to the spirit and the aims of the Union.


Oxford's Savilian Professors of Geometry

Oxford's Savilian Professors of Geometry

Author: Robin Wilson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-01-26

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0198869037

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the geometry chair, a meeting was held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and the talks presented at this meeting have formed the basis for this fully edited and lavishly illustrated book, which outlines the first 400 years of Oxford's Savilian Professors of Geometry.