Agnes Mary Clerke and the Rise of Astrophysics
Agnes Mary Clerke and the Rise of Astrophysics
Born in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, Agnes Mary Clerke achieved fame as the author of A History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century. Through her quarter-century career, she became the leading commentator on astronomy and astrophysics in the English-speaking world. The biography of Agnes Clerke describes the life and work of this extraordinary woman. It also chronicles the development of astronomy in the last decades of pre-Einstein science, and introduces many of the great figures in astronomy of that age including Huggins, Lockyer, Holden and Pickering; their achievements and their rivalries. The story follows her friendship with William and Margaret Huggins, and her prolific correspondence with eminent astronomers of the time. This biography will fascinate scientists, and anyone who admires intellectual achievement brought about through love of learning and sheer hard work.
- Biography of a successful nineteenth-century career woman
- Scientific background is clearly explained
Reviews & endorsements
"BrÜck has written an excellent book. Her thorough research in numerous archives and in Clerke's publications is well documented in the notes, and numerous well-chosen photographs illustrate the text. There is an extremely informative chapter on women in astronomy in the Victorian era... BrÜck paints a fascinating picture of the rich fabric of British astronomy and astrophysics at the end of the nineteenth century. This is a highly readable, well-produced, attractive book." Nature
"This first full-length biography of Clerke, a woman historian of astronomy of the last half of the 19th century, also details a significangt period in the rise of modern astrophysics with the development of larger and better telescopes, the use of photography in the mapping of the skies, and the invention of the spectroheliograph. Working primarily from archival sources, BrÜck has written a detailed, scholarly, and thorough account of both the life and the work of relatively unknown Irish woman of science. The careful documentation includes photographs of the astronomers and their work." Choice
Product details
May 2002Hardback
9780521808446
286 pages
216 × 140 × 21 mm
0.51kg
23 b/w illus.
Available
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1. Family background in County Cork
- 2. Ireland and Italy
- 3. London, the literary scene
- 4. The History of Astronomy
- 5. A circle of astronomers
- 6. A visit to South Africa
- 7. The System of the Stars
- 8. Social life in scientific circles
- 9. Homer, the Herschels and a revised History
- 10. The opinion moulder
- 11. Popularisation, cryogenics and evolution
- 12. Problems in Astrophysics
- 13. Women in astronomy in Britain in Agnes Clerke's time
- 14. Revised System of the Stars
- 15. Cosmogonies, cosmology and Nature's spiritual clues
- 16. Last days and retrospect
- 17. Epilogue
- Notes
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index.
