Owen Gingerich

The Summer of 1953: A Watershed for Astrophysics

Beginning in 1927 the University of Michigans summer school in physics became famous as the international forum for learning about the latest advances in modern physics. Within a decade of its inception perhaps half of the most renowned European physicists had turned up for its sessions—scientists like Fermi, Dirac, Pauli, Sommerfeld, Goudsmit, Uhlenbeck, Ehrenfest and the astrophysicists Robert Atkinson and E. A. Milne.

The Unmaking of the Medieval Christian Cosmos, 1500–1760: From Solid Heavens to Boundless Aether

Contents: Introduction The medieval foundations of the Christian cosmos Renaissance and Reformation challenges to the medieval cosmos and the response of the Counter-Reformation The challenge of applied optics The reception of new astronomical evidence The challenge of infinity The Empyrean in the late Renaissance and the Baroque age The cosmos in university textbooks The impact of Cartesianism and Copernicanism and the end of the medieval cosmos Conclusion Bibliography Additional bibliography (2004) Index.

The great Martian catastrophe and how Kepler fixed it

For a few weeks every 32 years, both the Ptolemaic and Copernican predictions for the position of Mars are off by close to 5 degrees—a problem first noticed by Tycho Brahe.

Astrophysics and Twentieth‐Century Astronomy to 1950 Volume 4, Part A, of the General History of Astronomy and The History of Astronomy from Herschel to Hertzsprung and The Astronomical Scrapbook: Skywatchers, Pioneers, and Seekers in Astronomy

Introduction Owen Gingerich Preface 1. Star-crossed lives 2. Telescopes and techniques 3. Phenomena of the Earth, Moon and planets 5. Studies and students of the Moon 6. Planets and other solar system objects 7. Stars and stellar systems 8. Star atlases and other publications Notes Index.

The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

WHEN A NEW STAR bursts forth in the sky or a comet appears unexpectedly over the horizon, astronomers all over the world hope for prompt notification lest possible observations be irretrievably lost. To provide the required world‐wide communications, the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams operates under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.