Tassoul Monique - A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics

A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics

A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics

Jean-Louis Tassoul and Monique Tassoul

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2004 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press,
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In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tassoul, Jean Louis, 1938.

A concise history of solar and stellar physics / Jean-Louis Tassoul and Monique Tassoul.

p. cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-691-11711-X (acid-free paper)

1. SunHistory. 2. StarsHistory. 3. AstrophysicsHistory. I. Tassoul, Monique, 1942- II. Title

QB521.T37 2004

523.01'09dc22

200353681

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Times Roman with Abadi display

Printed on acid-free paper.

www.pupress.princeton.edu

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Figures

Every reasonable effort has been made to contact the copyright holders for all previously published pieces appearing in this volume. (1990) are reprinted with permission from Nature; copyright Macmillan Magazines Limited.

Preface

This book is the work of two theoretical astrophysicists who have been active in the field since the early 1960s, and who are convinced that scientific education has become so specialized that scientific literacy is slowly disappearing among scientists. An attempt is made in this book, therefore, to outline the history of ideas about the sun and the stars, from the earliest historical times to the twentieth centurys final years, and to present it in a form that is almost entirely devoid of elaborate mathematics. Although intended mainly for the use of students and teachers of astronomy, the present work should also provide a useful reference for practicing astronomers and scientifically curious lay people who are interested in the historical development of solar and stellar physics. To this end we have cited, where appropriate, in footnotes to the text several key references as an aid to independent reading of the original material. Whenever available, we have also quoted secondary references, such as review papers and modern commentaries by science historians. The emphasis on theoretical work is, we think, the main difference between this text and others. Actually, about half of the book includes most of the theoretical research done during the six decades 19402000, a large body of work which has so far seldom been explored by historians.

The two opening chapters make no claim to be original contributions to the history of astronomy since they are written largely from second-hand sources. we deal in a most systematic way with the immense mass of observations that astronomy has accumulated from about 1610 to the late 1910s. (For the sake of clarity, more recent observations are reported in subsequent chapters.) After careful consideration, however, we deliberately abstained from describing observational techniques because the subject of astronomical instrumentation is so well covered in standard astronomy texts and popular books.

we treat the more recent theoretical work, giving precedence to whoever first entered the field or established a new fact. In doing so, we have therefore adopted a method of presentation directly opposite to that of the typical review paper, which covers only the most recent contributions. This and other trends in contemporary scientific research are briefly reviewed in the epilogue.

Admittedly, because research in solar and stellar physics has so many separate branches, most readers will not want to go through all the chapters of this book. This is why we have divided the subject matter into sections, each of which is developed in a logical order. Someone who has an interest in the theory of variable stars, for example, may want to read just . We therefore suggest that the reader first consult the table of contents if it is desired to read about the history of a specific subject. Another unique feature of this book is the insertion throughout the text of numerous portraits, which remind us that scientific knowledge is the handiwork of individual human beings from all over the world.

We are greatly indebted to Georges Michaud for his careful and constructive evaluation of the entire manuscript and for the numerous suggestions he made for its improvement. Our thanks also go to those who have made available vital information for inclusion in the text: Solveig Berg, Sergei Blinnikov, Hermann A. Brck, Paul Charbonneau, Ene-Kaja Chippendale, John A. Crawford, Bernard R. Durney, Elfriede Gamov, Peter Hingley, Paul Hodge, Robert P. Kraft, Jan Lub, Leon Mestel, Paulo de Tarso Muzy, Hans Olofsson, Yoji Osaki, Donald E. Osterbrock, Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Jean Perdang, Roland Rappmann, Gnther Rdiger, Barbara Schwarzschild, Scott D. Tremaine, Jeremi Wasiutyski, Harold F. Weaver, Franois Wesemael, Meg Weston Smith, and Galina Zajtseva. The help of these and other individuals is gratefully acknowledged, but of course they are in no way responsible for any errors of fact or judgment that the book may contain.

Jean-Louis and Monique Tassoul
Montral, Qubec
March 2002

From an anonymous parody of Goethes Faust. Quoted in George Gamow, Thirty Years that Shook Physics (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 175176.

A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics

Chapter One

The Age of Myths and Speculations

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

Genesis 1:3

For thousands of years men have looked up into the star-filled night sky and have wondered about the nature of the fixed stars as opposed to that of the five planets wandering among the constellations of the zodiac. The daily course of the sun, its brilliance and heat, and the passing of the seasons are among the central problems that have concerned every human society. Undoubtedly, the appearance of a comet or a shooting star, the passing phenomena of clouds and rain and lightning, the Milky Way, the changing phases of the moon and the eclipsesall of these must have caused quite a sense of wonder and been the source of endless discussions.

Faced with this confusing multiplicity of brute facts, beyond their physical power to control, our ancestors sought to master these unrelated phenomena symbolically by picturing the universe in terms of objects familiar to them so as to make clear the unfamiliar and the unexplained. The cosmologies that these men set up thus inevitably reflect the physical and intellectual environment in which they lived.