Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 ‘The astronomer … must come to the chemist’
- 3 The young observer
- 4 ‘A sudden impulse …’
- 5 The riddle of the nebulae
- 6 Moving in the inner circle
- 7 Stellar motion along the line of sight
- 8 A new telescope
- 9 Solar observations
- 10 An able assistant
- 11 Photographing the solar corona
- 12 A scientific lady
- 13 Foes and allies
- 14 The new astronomy
- 15 ‘One true mistress’
- 16 Conclusion
- Appendix: ‘The new astronomy: A personal retrospect’
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 ‘The astronomer … must come to the chemist’
- 3 The young observer
- 4 ‘A sudden impulse …’
- 5 The riddle of the nebulae
- 6 Moving in the inner circle
- 7 Stellar motion along the line of sight
- 8 A new telescope
- 9 Solar observations
- 10 An able assistant
- 11 Photographing the solar corona
- 12 A scientific lady
- 13 Foes and allies
- 14 The new astronomy
- 15 ‘One true mistress’
- 16 Conclusion
- Appendix: ‘The new astronomy: A personal retrospect’
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
where in the murky depths of mind
do idea-seeds sleep?
what seasons do they know
that make them wont to wake and grow
in spasms –
madly now, dormant then –
entangling all within their ken:
synaptic vines
to clamber
to the very stars.
My interest in the life and work of English astronomer William Huggins (1824–1910) began over twenty years ago in a graduate seminar on conceptual transfer within and among specialised scientific communities. The exchange of cultural baggage is a subtle dynamic that practitioners, particularly those working in long-established disciplines, usually take care to shield from public view. Our little group spent the semester analysing the far more transparent machinery of newer, still-developing hybrid disciplines like geophysics, biochemistry and astrobiology.
The topic meshed well with my own research interests at the time. I wanted to learn more about how the boundaries of scientific disciplines are established, policed and altered: What are the rules members must follow in investigating the natural world? What questions are deemed appropriate to ask? What do good answers to such questions look like and how can they be recognised? What constitutes an acceptable way of finding those answers? Who is allowed to participate in the search? Who says?
How better to find answers to these questions than to watch a scientific discipline during a period of change?
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- Unravelling StarlightWilliam and Margaret Huggins and the Rise of the New Astronomy, pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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