Robert W. Smith

Bio: Robert W. Smith is an academic researcher from University of Alberta. The author has contributed to research in topics: Spitzer Space Telescope & Galaxy. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 42 publications receiving 430 citations. Previous affiliations of Robert W. Smith include Smithsonian Institution & Johns Hopkins University.

A National Observatory Transformed - Greenwich in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: The Royal Observatory at Greenwich was one of the leading institutions of nineteenth-century astronomy. It was certainly a national observatory, but for much of that period the high regard with which astronomers viewed the results it produced and its position at the heart of a network of international observatories were such that Greenwich's importance transcended national boundaries. When in 1884 an international conference was held to choose a common zero of longitude, it was the Greenwich meridian that the conferees selected} In some ways, it was the international observatory. Dominating the Royal Observatory's history for almost half of the nineteenth century was Sir George Biddell Airy, Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881 (Figure I). Under Airy, the Observatory's complement and types of instruments, as well as methods of management, were transformed from those characteristic of a pre-industrial society to those of a society that had undergone the second phase of the Industrial Revolution. The result was that, although the Observatory was certainly notable for its scientific results, it was perhaps even more important for the new ways ofpursuing astronomy fashioned there. I shall follow E. W. Maunder and argue that under Airy, Greenwich to a large degree resembled a kind of accountant's office, a very different sort of workplace from that common for astronomical institutions in, say, the 1820s when Airy began his career. The Observatory's astronomical goals, however, display a strong strand of continuity throughout the century. Airy nevertheless played a key role in leading the Observatory in new directions and scholars agree that he put his stamp on the institution to a much greater degree than the other nineteenthcentury directors, Nevil Maskelyne, John Pond, and Sir William Christie. In discussing the Royal Observatory in the nineteenth century, I shall therefore concentrate upon Airy's directorship. In a short paper it is impossible to do justice to the full range of endeavours pursued under Airy. I shall instead focus on two areas that I believe are particularly revealing of the Observatory's place in nineteenth-century astronomy and in science in general. Both areas have attracted attention recently: first, the changing responsibilities of the Observatory, which in turn reveal the Observatory's shifting position in the political economies of astronomy and British science, and, second, the extent to which Airy altered the astronomer's workplace and turned Greenwich into a kind offactory and the degree to which Airy was himself a sort of factory manager. The history of nineteenth-century astronomy is a relatively neglected area of

Who discovered the expanding universe

Abstract: L'expansion de l'univers est reconnue comme un fait mais peut etre decrite comme une decouverte. L'A. analyse le concept de la decouverte scientifique, rappelle les principes d'Einstein qui l'ont conduit a la theorie de l'univers en expansion et decrit comment Hubble (E.) fut associe a la decouverte de l'univers en expansion

The Space Telescope: A Study of Nasa, Science, Technology, and Politics

Abstract: Scientific, technological, economic, and political aspects of NASA efforts to orbit a large astronomical telescope are examined in a critical historical review based on extensive interviews with participants and analysis of published and unpublished sources. The scientific advantages of large space telescopes are explained; early plans for space observatories are summarized; the history of NASA and its major programs is surveyed; the redesign of the original Large Space Telescope for Shuttle deployability is discussed; the impact of the yearly funding negotiations with Congress on the development of the final Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is described; and the implications of the HST story for the future of large space science projects are explored. Drawings, photographs, a description of the HST instruments and systems, and lists of the major contractors and institutions participating in the HST program are provided.

The Cambridge Network in Action: The Discovery of Neptune

Abstract: I MOURN OVER THE LOSS to England and to Cambridge of a discovery which ought to be theirs every inch of it, but I have said enough about it to get heartily abused in France, and I don't want to get hated in England for saying more.\"19 So wrote a disappointed Sir John Herschel in November 1846, two months after Neptune had been discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest and J. G. Galle of the Berlin Observatory as a direct consequence of the calculations based on the novel approach of inverse perturbations of the French mathematical astronomer U. J. J. Le Verrier. Although a good position for the planet had been predicted by the Cambridge mathematician John Couch Adams over a year before and a search had been instituted by James Challis from Cambridge in July 1846, Cambridge had been scooped. There is already a considerable body of writing on the discovery of Neptune. Much of it is concerned with allocating blame to those who, in the authors' opinion, failed to search energetically enough for the planet, particularly George Biddell Airy and James Challis. Such works have cast very long shadows indeed

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Abstract: Monthly Notices is one of the three largest general primary astronomical research publications. It is an international journal, published by the Royal Astronomical Society. This article 1 describes its publication policy and practice.

Patterns of Discovery : An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science.

Abstract: There has been surprisingly little systematic analysis of mental or other processes by which discoveries are made or of the role of theory in leading to scientific, and especially medical, discoveries. A great many poets have written about their own inspiration. Lowe's magnificent "Road to Xanadu" comes close to telling us exactly where Coleridge got many of his ideas for the "Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan." Some biographies of scientists include comments on the circumstances under which inspiration occurred and led to important new insights in medicine. But for the most part there is silence and a void. What people forget so regularly is that discovery is not very apt to come from the analysis of vast quantities of more or less mechanically collected data; that ideas and the insights which go to make up theory and lead to discovery have just as real impetus from inspiration as do the

Handbook of the history of logic

Abstract: ion and general ideas.” Compare Meinong, Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit, p. 178: “Besonders geeignet sind vielmehr Begriffsgegenstände, wie uns deren etwa durch Definitionen gegeben werden. Das Dreick z.B., darin hatte der sicher nicht überrationalistische Locke gegen Berkeley und gegen viele Spätere) am Ende doch recht, ist als solches weder gleichseitig noch gleichschenklig, weder rechtwinklig noch schiefwinklig, noch das Gegenteil davon: es ist in diesen Hinsichten und noch in vielen anderen eben unbestimmt. Gegenstände dieser Art stehen in deutlichen Gegensatz zu solchen, die, wie wir deren oben zuerst betrachtet haben, in bezug auf alle wie immer gearteten Gegenstände bestimmt sind. Man kann solche Gegenstände mit Recht vollständig bestimmte nennen, Blaues, Dreieck und ihresgleichen dagegen unvollständig bestimmte.” 15Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, [1739-40], edited by Selby-Bigge, second edition revised by Nidditch (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 17.