Robert W Smith | University of Alberta (original) (raw)
Papers by Robert W Smith
Physics Today, May 1, 1985
Page 1. i EDDINGTON The most distinguished astrophysicist of his time Page 2. I r. Page 3. Page 4... more Page 1. i EDDINGTON The most distinguished astrophysicist of his time Page 2. I r. Page 3. Page 4. Page 5. Arthur Stanley Eddington Centenary Lectures EDDINGTON The most distinguished astrophysicist of his time Page 6. ...
Journal for the History of Astronomy, Feb 1, 2009
Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s... more Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s that remade the discipline in scientific, technological and institutional terms. 1 In this paper the focus will be on the evolution of observational extragalactic astronomy in these years. It is important to emphasize, however, that at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century nearly all astronomers would have regarded the pursuit of extragalactic astronomy as pointless. In 1890, Agnes Clerke (1842-1907), in what must be now one of the most famous quotations in the history of modern astronomy, contended in her The system of the stars that "No competent thinker, with the whole of the available evidence before him, can now, it is safe to say, maintain any single nebula to be a star system of coordinate rank with the Milky Way". 2 She repeated this confident declaration in the second edition of the book published in 1905. 3 But within a few years of this new edition several astronomers were challenging this view. By the late 1920s it had been completely overturned. In 1931 the prominent Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter (1872-1934) declared that never "in all the history of science has there been a period when new theories and hypotheses arose, flourished, and were abandoned in so quick succession as in the last fifteen or twenty years". 4 De Sitter was reflecting on a period of turmoil in physics and astronomy in which alongside the upheavals wrought by quantum theory and general relativity, the centuries-old debate on the nature of nebulae had finally been settled. The resolution of the debate was due mainly to the efforts of a small group of astronomers who in the first three decades of the twentieth century exploited large optical telescopes and state-of-the-art ancillary instruments at good observing sites in the west of the United States to observe a class of nebulae, the spiral nebulae, with unprecedented clarity. The spirals, they proved, were external galaxies. This finding was then linked to general relativity by a handful of theorists who thereby forged the entirely unexpected discovery of the expansion of the universe. Following the discussion of these developments, I will track the main changes in extragalactic astronomy to the mid-1960s. By this time extragalactic astronomy was very widely pursued. Cosmology had become a much more respectable enterprise than it had been in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and even 1950s, decades in which the properties of stars and their life histories had dominated the interests of astrophysicists in the United States and elsewhere. While the paper will concentrate on observational researches, at some points theoretical issues will also be discussed in order the better to explain the shifting directions and goals of observational investigations.
Journal for the History of Astronomy, Feb 1, 2008
Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s... more Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s that remade the discipline in scientific, technological and institutional terms. 1 In this paper the focus will be on the evolution of observational extragalactic astronomy in these years. It is important to emphasize, however, that at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century nearly all astronomers would have regarded the pursuit of extragalactic astronomy as pointless. In 1890, Agnes Clerke (1842-1907), in what must be now one of the most famous quotations in the history of modern astronomy, contended in her The system of the stars that "No competent thinker, with the whole of the available evidence before him, can now, it is safe to say, maintain any single nebula to be a star system of coordinate rank with the Milky Way". 2 She repeated this confident declaration in the second edition of the book published in 1905. 3 But within a few years of this new edition several astronomers were challenging this view. By the late 1920s it had been completely overturned. In 1931 the prominent Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter (1872-1934) declared that never "in all the history of science has there been a period when new theories and hypotheses arose, flourished, and were abandoned in so quick succession as in the last fifteen or twenty years". 4 De Sitter was reflecting on a period of turmoil in physics and astronomy in which alongside the upheavals wrought by quantum theory and general relativity, the centuries-old debate on the nature of nebulae had finally been settled. The resolution of the debate was due mainly to the efforts of a small group of astronomers who in the first three decades of the twentieth century exploited large optical telescopes and state-of-the-art ancillary instruments at good observing sites in the west of the United States to observe a class of nebulae, the spiral nebulae, with unprecedented clarity. The spirals, they proved, were external galaxies. This finding was then linked to general relativity by a handful of theorists who thereby forged the entirely unexpected discovery of the expansion of the universe. Following the discussion of these developments, I will track the main changes in extragalactic astronomy to the mid-1960s. By this time extragalactic astronomy was very widely pursued. Cosmology had become a much more respectable enterprise than it had been in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and even 1950s, decades in which the properties of stars and their life histories had dominated the interests of astrophysicists in the United States and elsewhere. While the paper will concentrate on observational researches, at some points theoretical issues will also be discussed in order the better to explain the shifting directions and goals of observational investigations.
The Journal of American History, Mar 1, 1992
Page 1. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE LANDS AT S YSTEM 5 *;w. «*'- war PAMELA E.MACK ... more Page 1. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE LANDS AT S YSTEM 5 *;w. «*'- war PAMELA E.MACK AV*f e^i m »-' NT. ' "A * Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. Viewing the Earth The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite ...
Physics in Perspective, Aug 9, 2020
On September 29, 1846, James Challis, as he had done many times in the previous two months, went ... more On September 29, 1846, James Challis, as he had done many times in the previous two months, went to use the Northumberland Telescope at the Cambridge University Observatory to scan the skies in pursuit of a new planet. On that night, however, he spotted an object he suspected might be the body predicted to exist by the mathematical analyses of John Couch Adams and U. J. J. Le Verrier. But two days later, the sensational news that the planet-Neptune-had been discovered from Berlin on September 23 was announced publicly in Britain. The information did not come in the pages of a scientific journal or through a report at a scientific meeting, but in the columns of the Times of London. Some seventy-seven years later, the first public notice of arguably the most momentous discovery in twentieth-century astronomy-that there is a myriad of galaxies beyond our own Milky Way galaxy-appeared in November 1924 in the New York Times, six weeks before the findings were presented at a scientific meeting. The appropriateness of presenting significant astronomical findings in newspapers was widely accepted in the years between the discoveries of Neptune and of external galaxies. In News from Mars, Joshua Nall goes far beyond this link between astronomy and newspapers. He argues for an intimate relationship between the new sorts of astronomy that emerged in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-astrophysics and planetary science-and mass media, particularly the novel sorts of mass media that also arose in these same years. In so doing, he questions the shifting meanings of ''astronomer'' and ''astronomy.''
Osiris, 1994
In this article the authors focus on the highly complex and politically charged process by which,... more In this article the authors focus on the highly complex and politically charged process by which, in the face of competition from other detectors, the CCDs came to be used in the Wide-Field Planetary Camera, and thus the devices through which most observers - scientific and lay alike - were expected to experience the telescope's view of the universe.
CRC Press eBooks, May 17, 2023
CRC Press eBooks, May 17, 2023
Oxford University Press eBooks, Apr 4, 2019
The first detailed and extensive studies of nebulae were made by William and Caroline Herschel in... more The first detailed and extensive studies of nebulae were made by William and Caroline Herschel in the late eighteenth century. These researches led to wide-ranging debates on the nature of these objects: are they truly clouds of nebulous material or are they perhaps distant star systems? By the end of the nineteenth century, astronomers generally agreed that nebulae are either within or closely linked to our own stellar system, and that no galaxies beyond our own Galaxy had been sighted, even in the largest telescopes. But early in the twentieth century, astronomers managed to fashion novel ways to determine the distances to a class of nebulae known as spiral nebulae. With the aid of these distance indicators, the spiral nebulae were transformed into galaxies of stars. Modern extragalactic cosmology thereby came into being in the first few decades of the twentieth century.
Springer eBooks, Nov 14, 2014
Astronomers in the late nineteenth century and at the very start of the twentieth century were ve... more Astronomers in the late nineteenth century and at the very start of the twentieth century were very little interested in the broader universe, its history and what lay beyond our galactic system as well as what is sometimes termed the thermodynamic cosmos. Some were very concerned with the structure of our own stellar system, but astronomers played next to no part in debates at the end of the nineteenth century about the wider nature of the cosmos. The infinite universe beyond our stellar system was territory professional astronomers were more than were happy to leave to mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, and some popularizers. In this paper I will examine these attitudes and why and how they changed. I will then discuss the discovery of galaxies, which will be the focus of the final section of the paper.
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223, 2014
ABSTRACT
IAU Symposium, Dec 1, 1977
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #217, 2011
ABSTRACT
Journal for the History of Astronomy, Feb 1, 1998
There he spent his last years, capped by the discovery of Barnard's star, then recognized as ... more There he spent his last years, capped by the discovery of Barnard's star, then recognized as having the largest proper motion (ten seconds of arc per year) of any such object. Sheehan's beautifully illustrated book is rendered in prose accessible to the layperson and professional alike. It is clearly a caring work, marred only by too many bloated quotations and digressions on extraneous matters that can make the going tedious in places. In this regard a more perceptive editor could have turned what is a good and important book into an even better one.
Physics Today, May 1, 1985
Page 1. i EDDINGTON The most distinguished astrophysicist of his time Page 2. I r. Page 3. Page 4... more Page 1. i EDDINGTON The most distinguished astrophysicist of his time Page 2. I r. Page 3. Page 4. Page 5. Arthur Stanley Eddington Centenary Lectures EDDINGTON The most distinguished astrophysicist of his time Page 6. ...
Journal for the History of Astronomy, Feb 1, 2009
Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s... more Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s that remade the discipline in scientific, technological and institutional terms. 1 In this paper the focus will be on the evolution of observational extragalactic astronomy in these years. It is important to emphasize, however, that at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century nearly all astronomers would have regarded the pursuit of extragalactic astronomy as pointless. In 1890, Agnes Clerke (1842-1907), in what must be now one of the most famous quotations in the history of modern astronomy, contended in her The system of the stars that "No competent thinker, with the whole of the available evidence before him, can now, it is safe to say, maintain any single nebula to be a star system of coordinate rank with the Milky Way". 2 She repeated this confident declaration in the second edition of the book published in 1905. 3 But within a few years of this new edition several astronomers were challenging this view. By the late 1920s it had been completely overturned. In 1931 the prominent Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter (1872-1934) declared that never "in all the history of science has there been a period when new theories and hypotheses arose, flourished, and were abandoned in so quick succession as in the last fifteen or twenty years". 4 De Sitter was reflecting on a period of turmoil in physics and astronomy in which alongside the upheavals wrought by quantum theory and general relativity, the centuries-old debate on the nature of nebulae had finally been settled. The resolution of the debate was due mainly to the efforts of a small group of astronomers who in the first three decades of the twentieth century exploited large optical telescopes and state-of-the-art ancillary instruments at good observing sites in the west of the United States to observe a class of nebulae, the spiral nebulae, with unprecedented clarity. The spirals, they proved, were external galaxies. This finding was then linked to general relativity by a handful of theorists who thereby forged the entirely unexpected discovery of the expansion of the universe. Following the discussion of these developments, I will track the main changes in extragalactic astronomy to the mid-1960s. By this time extragalactic astronomy was very widely pursued. Cosmology had become a much more respectable enterprise than it had been in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and even 1950s, decades in which the properties of stars and their life histories had dominated the interests of astrophysicists in the United States and elsewhere. While the paper will concentrate on observational researches, at some points theoretical issues will also be discussed in order the better to explain the shifting directions and goals of observational investigations.
Journal for the History of Astronomy, Feb 1, 2008
Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s... more Astronomy underwent a series of transformations between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s that remade the discipline in scientific, technological and institutional terms. 1 In this paper the focus will be on the evolution of observational extragalactic astronomy in these years. It is important to emphasize, however, that at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century nearly all astronomers would have regarded the pursuit of extragalactic astronomy as pointless. In 1890, Agnes Clerke (1842-1907), in what must be now one of the most famous quotations in the history of modern astronomy, contended in her The system of the stars that "No competent thinker, with the whole of the available evidence before him, can now, it is safe to say, maintain any single nebula to be a star system of coordinate rank with the Milky Way". 2 She repeated this confident declaration in the second edition of the book published in 1905. 3 But within a few years of this new edition several astronomers were challenging this view. By the late 1920s it had been completely overturned. In 1931 the prominent Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter (1872-1934) declared that never "in all the history of science has there been a period when new theories and hypotheses arose, flourished, and were abandoned in so quick succession as in the last fifteen or twenty years". 4 De Sitter was reflecting on a period of turmoil in physics and astronomy in which alongside the upheavals wrought by quantum theory and general relativity, the centuries-old debate on the nature of nebulae had finally been settled. The resolution of the debate was due mainly to the efforts of a small group of astronomers who in the first three decades of the twentieth century exploited large optical telescopes and state-of-the-art ancillary instruments at good observing sites in the west of the United States to observe a class of nebulae, the spiral nebulae, with unprecedented clarity. The spirals, they proved, were external galaxies. This finding was then linked to general relativity by a handful of theorists who thereby forged the entirely unexpected discovery of the expansion of the universe. Following the discussion of these developments, I will track the main changes in extragalactic astronomy to the mid-1960s. By this time extragalactic astronomy was very widely pursued. Cosmology had become a much more respectable enterprise than it had been in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and even 1950s, decades in which the properties of stars and their life histories had dominated the interests of astrophysicists in the United States and elsewhere. While the paper will concentrate on observational researches, at some points theoretical issues will also be discussed in order the better to explain the shifting directions and goals of observational investigations.
The Journal of American History, Mar 1, 1992
Page 1. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE LANDS AT S YSTEM 5 *;w. «*'- war PAMELA E.MACK ... more Page 1. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE LANDS AT S YSTEM 5 *;w. «*'- war PAMELA E.MACK AV*f e^i m »-' NT. ' "A * Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. Viewing the Earth The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite ...
Physics in Perspective, Aug 9, 2020
On September 29, 1846, James Challis, as he had done many times in the previous two months, went ... more On September 29, 1846, James Challis, as he had done many times in the previous two months, went to use the Northumberland Telescope at the Cambridge University Observatory to scan the skies in pursuit of a new planet. On that night, however, he spotted an object he suspected might be the body predicted to exist by the mathematical analyses of John Couch Adams and U. J. J. Le Verrier. But two days later, the sensational news that the planet-Neptune-had been discovered from Berlin on September 23 was announced publicly in Britain. The information did not come in the pages of a scientific journal or through a report at a scientific meeting, but in the columns of the Times of London. Some seventy-seven years later, the first public notice of arguably the most momentous discovery in twentieth-century astronomy-that there is a myriad of galaxies beyond our own Milky Way galaxy-appeared in November 1924 in the New York Times, six weeks before the findings were presented at a scientific meeting. The appropriateness of presenting significant astronomical findings in newspapers was widely accepted in the years between the discoveries of Neptune and of external galaxies. In News from Mars, Joshua Nall goes far beyond this link between astronomy and newspapers. He argues for an intimate relationship between the new sorts of astronomy that emerged in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-astrophysics and planetary science-and mass media, particularly the novel sorts of mass media that also arose in these same years. In so doing, he questions the shifting meanings of ''astronomer'' and ''astronomy.''
Osiris, 1994
In this article the authors focus on the highly complex and politically charged process by which,... more In this article the authors focus on the highly complex and politically charged process by which, in the face of competition from other detectors, the CCDs came to be used in the Wide-Field Planetary Camera, and thus the devices through which most observers - scientific and lay alike - were expected to experience the telescope's view of the universe.
CRC Press eBooks, May 17, 2023
CRC Press eBooks, May 17, 2023
Oxford University Press eBooks, Apr 4, 2019
The first detailed and extensive studies of nebulae were made by William and Caroline Herschel in... more The first detailed and extensive studies of nebulae were made by William and Caroline Herschel in the late eighteenth century. These researches led to wide-ranging debates on the nature of these objects: are they truly clouds of nebulous material or are they perhaps distant star systems? By the end of the nineteenth century, astronomers generally agreed that nebulae are either within or closely linked to our own stellar system, and that no galaxies beyond our own Galaxy had been sighted, even in the largest telescopes. But early in the twentieth century, astronomers managed to fashion novel ways to determine the distances to a class of nebulae known as spiral nebulae. With the aid of these distance indicators, the spiral nebulae were transformed into galaxies of stars. Modern extragalactic cosmology thereby came into being in the first few decades of the twentieth century.
Springer eBooks, Nov 14, 2014
Astronomers in the late nineteenth century and at the very start of the twentieth century were ve... more Astronomers in the late nineteenth century and at the very start of the twentieth century were very little interested in the broader universe, its history and what lay beyond our galactic system as well as what is sometimes termed the thermodynamic cosmos. Some were very concerned with the structure of our own stellar system, but astronomers played next to no part in debates at the end of the nineteenth century about the wider nature of the cosmos. The infinite universe beyond our stellar system was territory professional astronomers were more than were happy to leave to mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, and some popularizers. In this paper I will examine these attitudes and why and how they changed. I will then discuss the discovery of galaxies, which will be the focus of the final section of the paper.
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #223, 2014
ABSTRACT
IAU Symposium, Dec 1, 1977
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #217, 2011
ABSTRACT
Journal for the History of Astronomy, Feb 1, 1998
There he spent his last years, capped by the discovery of Barnard's star, then recognized as ... more There he spent his last years, capped by the discovery of Barnard's star, then recognized as having the largest proper motion (ten seconds of arc per year) of any such object. Sheehan's beautifully illustrated book is rendered in prose accessible to the layperson and professional alike. It is clearly a caring work, marred only by too many bloated quotations and digressions on extraneous matters that can make the going tedious in places. In this regard a more perceptive editor could have turned what is a good and important book into an even better one.