A to Z of Scientists in Space and Astronomy, Updated Edition

Deborah Todd, Joseph Angelo

Description

Designed for middle and high school students, A to Z of Scientists in Space and Astronomy, Updated Edition is an ideal reference for notable male and female scientists in the field of space and astronomy, from antiquity to the present.

Containing nearly 150 entries and approximately 50 black-and-white photographs, this exciting title emphasizes these scientists' contributions to the field as well as their effects on those who have followed.

People covered include:

• Al-Battani (858–929 CE)


• Aryabhata (476–550 CE)


• Tycho Brahe (1546–1601)


• Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)


• Stephen Hawking (1942–2018)


• James Van Allen (1914–2006)


• Katherine G. Johnson (1918–present)


• Eugene Parker (1927–2016)


• Dorothy Vaughan (1910–2008)

Sujets

• Technologies de fabrication
• Space Science
• Sciences et techniques
• Achievement
• Biography
• Succès (homonymie)
• Astronomy
• Space
• Scientist
• Exploration
• Science
• Astronomie
• Astrophysique

Informations

• Publié par: Infobase Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438183329
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A to Z of Scientists in Space and Astronomy, Updated Edition
Copyright © 2019 by Joseph A. Angelo, Jr. and Deborah Todd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For more information, contact:
Facts On File An imprint of Infobase 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001
ISBN 978-1-4381-8332-9
You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.infobase.com
Contents Entries Adams, John Couch Adams, Walter Sydney al-Battani Alcock, George Alfonso X Alfv n, Hannes Olof G sta al-Khwārizmī, Muhammad ibn Mūsā Alpher, Ralph Asher Alvarez, Luis Walter Ambartsumian, Viktor Amazaspovich Anderson, Carl David ngstr m, Anders Jonas Arago, Dominique-Fran ois-Jean Aratus of Soli Argelander, Friedrich Wilhelm August Aristarchus of Samos Aristotle and astronomy Arrhenius, Svante August Āryabhata Baade, Walter Barnard, Edward Emerson Bayer, Johannes Beg, Ulugh Bell Burnell, Susan Jocelyn Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm Bethe, Hans Albrecht Bode, Johann Elert Bok, Bartholomeus Jan Boltzmann, Ludwig Eduard Bradley, James Brahe, Tycho Braun, Wernher Magnus von Bruno, Giordano Bunsen, Robert Wilhelm Burbidge, Eleanor Margaret Peachey Campbell, William Wallace Cannon, Annie Jump Cassini, Giovanni Domenico Cavendish, Henry Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan Charlier, Carl Clark, Alvan Graham Clausius, Rudolf Compton, Arthur Holly Copernicus, Nicolaus Curtis, Heber Doust Dirac, Paul Doppler, Christian Douglass, Andrew Ellicott Drake, Frank Donald Draper, Henry Dyson, Sir Frank Watson Eddington, Sir Arthur Stanley Ehricke, Krafft Arnold Einstein, Albert Euler, Leonhard Fleming, Williamina Paton Stevens Fowler, William Alfred Fraunhofer, Joseph von Galilei, Galileo Galle, Johann Gottfried Gamow, George Giacconi, Riccardo Gill, Sir David Goddard, Robert Hutchings Hale, George Ellery Hall, Asaph Halley, Edmond Hawking, Stephen Herschel, Caroline Lucretia Herschel, Sir John Frederick William Herschel, Sir William Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf Hertzsprung, Ejnar Hess, Victor Francis Hewish, Antony Hohmann, Walter Hubble, Edwin Huggins, Sir William Jackson, Mary Jeans, Sir James Hopwood Johnson, Katherine G. Jones, Sir Harold Spencer Kant, Immanuel Kapteyn, Jacobus Cornelius Kepler, Johannes Kirchhoff, Gustav Robert Korolev, Sergei Pavlovich Kuiper, Gerard Peter Lagrange, Comte Joseph-Louis Laplace, Pierre-Simon Leavitt, Henrietta Swan Lema tre, Georges Leverrier, Urbain-Jean-Joseph Lippershey, Hans Lockyer, Sir Joseph Norman Lowell, Percival Messier, Charles Michelson, Albert Abraham Newcomb, Simon Oberth, Hermann Julius Olbers, Heinrich Wilhelm Matth us Oort, Jan Hendrik Parker, Eugene Payne-Scott, Ruby Penzias, Arno Allan Piazzi, Giuseppe Pickering, Edward Charles Planck, Max Plato Ptolemy, Claudius Reber, Grote Rees, Sir Martin John Rossi, Bruno Benedetto Russell, Henry Norris Ryle, Sir Martin Sagan, Carl Edward Scheiner, Christoph Schiaparelli, Giovanni Virginio Schmidt, Maarten Schwabe, Samuel Heinrich Schwarzschild, Karl Secchi, Pietro Angelo Shapley, Harlow Sitter, Willem de Slipher, Vesto Melvin Somerville, Mary Fairfax Stefan, Josef Tombaugh, Clyde William Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin Eduardovich Urey, Harold Clayton Van Allen, James Vaughan, Dorothy Wilson, Robert Woodrow Wolf, Maximilian Zeldovich, Yakov Zwicky, Fritz
Entries
Adams, John Couch
(b. 1819–d. 1892)
astronomer, mathematician

John Couch Adams, a brilliant scientist often described as shy, reserved, and even self-effacing, is best known as a central figure in a scientific fiasco that sparked an international debate, pitted nations against one another, and brought the world of astronomy out of academia and into the life of the average citizen. Adams's involvement in the missed discovery, and subsequent codiscovery, of the planet Neptune became one of the most important events in the history of astronomy, from both a scientific and a political point of view.
Born in 1819, the son of a farmer, Adams reportedly showed great mathematical ability from the time he was young, and at the age of 16 calculated the time of an upcoming solar eclipse. Four years later, in October 1839, Adams became a student at St. John's College in Cambridge, a town that Adams stayed tied to for the rest of his life.
Shortly after the discovery of Uranus by Sir William Herschel, astronomers discovered a baffling problem with that planet's orbit. Adams, in his second year of college, suspected that the problem was another planet, writing in 1841 that "the irregularities of the motion of Uranus" had him questioning "whether they may be attributed to the action of an undiscovered planet beyond it." His studies, and later his work, kept Adams busy, but he planned on "investigating, as soon as possible after taking my degree" (another two years away), the possible explanation for the planet's orbit, believing that he would then "if possible. . .determine the elements of its orbit, etc. approximately, which would probably lead to its discovery."
Unfortunately, life got in the way, protocol got in the way, and ineffective tools and people got in the way. The chain of events that took place between Adams's documented idea in July 1841, in which he suspected the existence of another planet, to his computations of the planet's location, to the actual discovery of the planet in September 1846, was a slow and painful progression. The time span of more than 5 years allowed plenty of time for outside forces and people to complicate matters, and the result was a full-blown scandal. The idea that "he who publishes first gets the credit," which was the protocol of the time, did not help Adams either. The professional positions and personal obligations of the people involved further complicated the events that followed.
In 1841 Adams was a second-year student convinced that there was another planet beyond Uranus. He was overworked with his studies, but still reportedly spent hours by candlelight, working through the night on mathematical computations to pinpoint the planet's location. While this was unknown to the rest of the world at the time, Adams was the first person to use Newton's theory of gravitation as a basis for calculating the position of a planet.
Two years later, in 1843, Adams graduated with extraordinarily high marks from Cambridge, receiving the award of First Smith's Prizeman and a fellowship at Pembroke College. He soon became a curator of the Cambridge Observatory, and his career was underway. In October he completed computations for the location of the planet, and shared his theory with the Astronomer Royal, Sir George Airy. But Airy disagreed, and thought that the problems with the orbit were related to the inverse square law of gravitation, in which gravitation begins to break down over large distances. Airy's dismissal of the computations, compounded by new teaching responsibilities, kept Adams from pursuing his theory.
Despite the setbacks, Adams had a brilliant mind, and although he was not what anyone would ever call aggressive, he was persistent about calculating the planet's position. Adams requested additional data on Uranus from Greenwich. Through the director of the Cambridge Observatory, Professor James Challis, Adams requested additional data from Airy in Greenwich, and in February 1844, the information was sent.
Dominique-François-Jean Arago, the director of the Paris Observatory, was also interested in Uranus's orbital problems, and he also thought another planet might be involved. In June 1845 he requested that one of his astronomers, Urbain-Jean-Joseph Leverrier, work on the solution to find this planet. Arago did not know about Adams's work, and Airy did not know that Arago was looking for a planet.
By September Adams's calculations were complete, and included the location of the planet, its mass, and its orbit. Adams personally took his findings to show Airy, but Airy was away in France, so Adams left a letter of introduction written on his behalf by Challis. Despite the fact that it was common for people from all walks of life to write to and drop in on the Astronomer Royal, Adams's behavior of showing up without an appointment is often highly criticized and cited as a contributing factor to the fiasco.
The following month, Airy wrote to Challis saying that he would see Adams, and Adams traveled once again without an appointment to see the astronomer. When he arrived, Mrs. Airy told Adams that her husband was out, so he left his card saying that he would return later in the day. She forgot to give the card to Airy, and when Adams returned as promised in the afternoon, he was told that the family was having dinner, which they did every afternoon at 3:30, and he was turned away again. Adams left his papers for Airy to review, and returned to Cambridge.
Airy still questioned Adams's theory, even after looking at his calculations and explanations, and later wrote to him asking specifically whether the new planet could explain some of the discrepancies of Uranus's orbit. Many think that Adams was bothered by the question because he thought it was missing the point—he had identified a planet and gave complete and thorough calculations. For whatever reason, Adams did not write back.
In November 1845 Leverrier published a paper stating that Jupiter and Saturn definitely did not cause Uranus's orbit, insisting that another factor had to be involved. On June 1, 1846, he published another paper, this time stating with certainty that another planet beyond Uranus was the only possible explanation for Uranus's orbit. Airy got a copy of Leverrier's paper on June 23, and wrote to him asking the same question he had asked Adams approximately six months earlier. This put Airy in the possession of information making him the only one who knew that Adams and Leverri