Great Astronomers
- Pages
- about 331
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 6.1 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
STREET VIEW, HERSCHEL HOUSE, SLOUGH.
From a Photograph by Hill & Saunders, Eton.
GARDEN VIEW, HERSCHEL HOUSE, SLOUGH.
From a Photograph by Hill & Saunders, Eton.
OBSERVATORY, HERSCHEL HOUSE, SLOUGH.
From a Photograph by Hill & Saunders, Eton.
THE 40-FOOT TELESCOPE, HERSCHEL HOUSE, SLOUGH.
From a Photograph by Hill & Saunders, Eton.
Of all the natural sciences there is not one which offers such
sublime objects to the attention of the inquirer as does the science
of astronomy. From the earliest ages the study of the stars has
exercised the same fascination as it possesses at the present day.
Among the most primitive peoples, the movements of the sun, the moon,
and the stars commanded attention from their supposed influence on
human affairs.
The practical utilities of astronomy were also obvious in primeval
times. Maxims of extreme antiquity show how the avocations of the
husbandman are to be guided by the movements of the heavenly bodies.
The positions of the stars indicated the time to plough, and the time
to sow. To the mariner who was seeking a way across the trackless
ocean, the heavenly bodies offered the only reliable marks by which
his path could be guided. There was, accordingly, a stimulus both
from intellectual curiosity and from practical necessity to follow
the movements of the stars. Thus began a search for the causes of
the ever-varying phenomena which the heavens display.
Many of the earliest discoveries are indeed prehistoric. The great
diurnal movement of the heavens, and the annual revolution of the
sun, seem to have been known in times far more ancient than those to
which any human monuments can be referred. The acuteness of the
early observers enabled them to single out the more important of the
wanderers which we now call planets. They saw that the star-like
objects, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, with the more conspicuous Venus,
constituted a class of bodies wholly distinct from the fixed stars
among which their movements lay, and to which they bear such a
superficial resemblance.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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