Author: William Huggins

Publisher: Pickering & Chatto Publishers

Published: 2014-06-01

Total Pages: 1398

ISBN-13: 9781781447239

William Huggins (1824–1910) was celebrated in his lifetime as the father of astrophysics. Huggins was also the author of numerous groundbreaking articles documenting his use of the spectroscope to analyse the light from celestial bodies. From the earliest days of his career Huggins was regularly in contact with other scientists, including astronomers, chemists, physicists, mathematicians and the makers of scientific instruments. Correspondents include Ernest Rutherford (pioneer of atomic physics), Thomas Romney Robinson (director of the Armagh Observatory), George Gabriel Stokes and Joseph Larmor (each served as Physical Secretary of the Royal Society), Thomas and Howard Grubb (father and son, makers of telescopes in Dublin), David Gill (director of the Royal Observatory at the Cape in South Africa) and George Ellery Hale (director of the Kenwood Astrophysical Observatory and founder of many others). This edition includes over 1,000 letters and excerpts from Huggins’s observatory notebooks. The documents, the majority of which are previously unpublished, reveal the important role that Huggins played in the development of astrophysics. Editorial apparatus situates the letters in their scientific and historical context. The edition will be of interest to those researching astrophysics, astronomy, the history of instruments and the history of science more generally.