Open Skies Policies in Astronomy: The Growing Need for Diplomacy on the Final Frontier

Astronomy and diplomacy have always been interwoven, from early international scientific collaboration and the first international NGOs in the twentieth century to twenty-first-century multinational projects and the rise of global astronomy organizations. The growing scale and cost as well as the need for cutting-edge technology have necessitated larger numbers of partners in astronomy collaborations. As a consequence, observing time on telescopes is being divided among various national users. Today, the astronomy community is thus nearing a shift regarding its global, inclusive character, and its own internationalization could have important ramifications for open access to astronomical facilities. This paper explores issues related to international funding of large astronomical facilities and the associated role for diplomacy

A Brief History of AGN

Astronomers knew early in the twentieth century that some galaxies have emission-line nuclei. However, even the systematic study by Seyfert (1943) was not enough to launch active galactic nuclei (AGN) as a major topic of astronomy. The advances in radio astronomy in the 1950s revealed a new universe of energetic phenomena, and inevitably led to the discovery of quasars. These discoveries demanded the attention of observers and theorists, and AGN have been a subject of intense effort ever since. Only a year after the recognition of the redshifts of 3C 273 and 3C 48 in 1963, the idea of energy production by accretion onto a black hole was advanced. However, acceptance of this idea came slowly, encouraged by the discovery of black hole X-ray sources in our Galaxy and, more recently, supermassive black holes in the center of the Milky Way and other galaxies. Many questions remain as to the formation and fueling of the hole, the geometry of the central regions, the detailed emission mechanisms, the production of jets, and other aspects. The study of AGN will remain a vigorous part of astronomy for the foreseeable future.Comment: 37 pages, no figures. Uses aaspp4.sty. To be published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1999 Jun

Astrophysics : Contributions of Indian Scientists .

A glimpse of astronomy and astrophysics from the earliest times to the end of the nineteenth century is given. This is followed by important contributions to astrophysics in the twentieth century with detailed accounts of the work of MN Saha, DS Kothari and a few others. This review ends with a brief account of the astrophysical activities in which a large number of scientists are presently involved

The Cosmic Century: A History of Astrophysics and Cosmology [Book Review]

The twentieth century saw many revolutions in astronomy and cosmology and it is hard to think of anyone better able to introduce and explain them all than Professor Malcolm Longair, prodigious author of many successful textbooks in the physical sciences and a highly talented expositor. The enormity of the task he faced in this compilation is evident. Originally begun as a contribution to a volume entitled Twentieth Century Physics (Institute of Physics, 1995), it blossomed into the present 540 pages volume replete with references to over 1000 famous scientific articles, an author index containing just as many names and copious notes at the end of each chapter often giving fascinating insight into how the various scientific discoveries unfolded

Public skies: telescopes and the popularization of astronomy in the twentieth century

Sputnik and the `Space Age\u27 have been cited as major factors in the growth of amateur astronomy in the 20th century. Although the growth of popular astronomy magazines, public planetaria, and the popularity of science fiction contributed to the popularization of astronomy, I contend that the greatest growth in amateur astronomy coincides more with the availability of inexpensive telescopes. Circa 1900, the average purchaser of an amateur-grade astronomical telescope was a wealthy doctor, lawyer, or the like. Hand-crafted refracting telescopes were the ideal, but even relatively small instruments of 3-inch aperture cost the equivalent of $3,000 in today\u27s terms. A series of articles appeared in Scientific American in 1926 providing detailed instructions on making Newtonian reflecting telescopes. The articles, the work of two `technological cheerleaders\u27, Russell Porter and Albert Ingalls, proved popular. The resulting home-made telescopes were effective instruments, but cost a fraction the price of a commercial telescope of similar size. By 1940 there were at least 30,000 active amateur astronomers and `ATMs\u27 (amateur telescope makers), of diverse social classes, in America. The Second World War created an opportunity for ATMs. Modern war requires all kinds of optical instruments, and the government was eager to find skilled workers to produce them. World War II became an `advanced school\u27 of telescope making where ATMs learned mass-production methods. ATMs founded a host of new telescope making companies in the 1950s using mass-production techniques to produce modestly-priced astronomical telescopes: Newtonian telescopes in the 3 to 4-inch range sold for as little as$25 ($150 today). These telescopes were marketed in the same way as automobiles, TVs, and other consumer products. Countries outside the United States never experienced the `ATM movement\u27 in any major way, nor shared American production techniques. Only Japan adopted the same methods as American commercial telescope manufacturers, huge numbers of small, mass-produced telescopes were being exported from Japan by the late 1950s, and hundreds of thousands of average Americans were involved in amateur astronomy by 1960

Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society

Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960), prominent astronomer and world-renowned socialist theorist, stood at the nexus of the revolutions in politics, science and the arts of the early twentieth century. His astronomy was uniquely visual and highly innovative, while his politics were radical. Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society collects essays on Pannekoek and his contemporaries at the crossroads of political history, the history of science and art history

Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society

Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960), prominent astronomer and world-renowned socialist theorist, stood at the nexus of the revolutions in politics, science and the arts of the early twentieth century. His astronomy was uniquely visual and highly innovative, while his politics were radical. Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society collects essays on Pannekoek and his contemporaries at the crossroads of political history, the history of science and art history

Reaching for the Stars : Studies in the History of Swedish Stellar and Nebular Astronomy, 1860–1940

This study considers astrophysics, stellar and nebular astronomy in Sweden. Emphasis is on the role of scientific technologies and practice, and the emergence of a modern observational astronomy, supplanting classical astronomy as the most vital field of Swedish astronomy. The introduction of photography and spectroscopy is discussed, mainly focused on Nils Dunér. The mechanical nature of the photographic observations was seen as something that entailed objectivity. Photography changed the way astronomers worked; the observations were industrialised. The stellar statistics of C.V.L. Charlier led to models of the distribution of stars in space; Charlier’s statistical astronomy was also connected with an increased interest for statistical methods in other parts of early twentieth-century Swedish culture. Knut Lundmark’s work was mainly on the distances to nebulæ. Lundmark also tried to catalogue the increased numbers of nebulæ observed in a general catalogue. A group centred on Bertil Lindblad worked on developing spectroscopical criteria for determining stellar distances. Lindblad and his group constructed a new observatory at Saltsjöbaden that was geared towards their research interests. Four professorial appointments are studied, where arguments about the relative merits of the fields of astronomy surfaced. The changing patterns of international contacts are also discussed, as are a number of astronomy-related scientists in other fields, publications on the history of astronomy and popular science

Rekindling Ashes of the Dharma and the Formation of Modern Tibetan Studies: The Busy Life of Alak Tseten Zhabdrung

Considered one of the three great scholars1 of twentieth century Tibet,2 Alak Tseten Zhabdrung Jigmé Rigpé Lodrö (A lags Tshe tan Zhabs drung \u27Jigs med rig pa\u27i blo gros 1910-1985) is credited with regenerating many aspects of Tibetan culture at a time of unprecedented socio-political change. Despite enduring twelve years in prison, Alak Tseten Zhabdrung energetically reclaimed his classical education to further transmit nearly all the traditional fields of knowledge including language, poetry, history, astronomy, calligraphy, and Buddhist philosophy

Cry "Good for history, Cambridge and Saint George"? Essay Review of Mary Jo Nye (Ed.); The Cambridge History of Science, Vol. 5. The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

FIRST PARAGRAPH This volume is the third thus far published of The Cambridge history of science, planned in eight parts over the last decade by Cambridge University Press. Noting the incompleteness of George Sarton’s heroic solo endeavour on a comparably magisterial scale (Sarton, 1953–1959), Cambridge general editors David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers adopted a more pragmatic multiple author approach in devising this new series. They devote the four latter volumes to that fertile wonder ‘modern science’, its modernity construed chronologically as the post-1800 era. While Volume 6 encompasses the biological and earth sciences ( Bowler & Pickstone, forthcoming), Volume 7 deals with the social sciences ( Porter & Ross, 2003), and Volume 8 examines the sciences in national and international setting ( Livingstone & Numbers, forthcoming). Lindberg and Numbers thus circumscribe the territory of Volume 5 to be the history of physics, chemistry, astronomy and mathematics in the Euro-American world. Although this might seem a fairly conventional—even conservative—subject clustering, few historians would have felt undaunted by the heterogeneity of such material, the narrowness of the brief and the long two-century period of coverage. This volume must therefore be judged with sensitivity to the difficulties of leading thirty-seven scholars in diverse specialisms to produce a coherent product, and the sheer impracticability of Sarton’s near-Shakespearean ambitions for unitary drama. Useful comparisons can thus be made with recent works that offer a multi-perspectival view over comparably broad terrain: John Krige and Dominic Pestre’s stimulating and uncomplacent Science in the twentieth century (1997), and the more radically inclusive bibliographical essays in Arne Hessenbruch (Ed.), The reader’s guide to the history of science (Hessenbruch, 2000)