Alan W. Hirshfeld
Autor(a) de Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos
About the Author
Alan W. Hirshfeld is an astronomer at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, earned his undergraduate degree in astrophysics from Princeton and his Ph. D. in astronomy from Yale. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.
Image credit: Deirdre Confar
Obras de Alan W. Hirshfeld
Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe (2014) 82 cópias
Sky Catalogue 2000.0: Double Stars, Variable Stars and Nonstellar Objects (Sky Catalogue 2000) (1985) 18 cópias
Sky Catalogue 2000.0: Volume 2, Galaxies, Double and Variable Stars, and Star Clusters: Stars to Visual Magnitude… (1985) 9 cópias
Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe 1 exemplar(es)
Introduction to Stars and Planets: An activities-based exploration (AAS-IOP Astronomy) (2020) 1 exemplar(es)
Sky Catalogue 2000 Volume 2 1 exemplar(es)
Sky Catalogue 2000.0 Volume 1 1 exemplar(es)
Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes 1 exemplar(es)
Eureka Man 1 exemplar(es)
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Sexo
- male
- Nacionalidade
- USA
- Educação
- Yale University
Princeton University - Ocupação
- astronomer
author
university professor - Organizações
- University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Membros
Resenhas
Prêmios
You May Also Like
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 15
- Membros
- 503
- Popularidade
- #49,235
- Avaliação
- 4.1
- Resenhas
- 17
- ISBNs
- 27
I have read another short biography of Faraday, "Michael Faraday: Apprentice to Science", so am already familiar w/ the basic story of his life.
Detailed partial review:
Preface
In which it is claimed that Faraday's religion made him so accepting of human fallibility that he readily acknowledged and accepted his own and that this made him a stronger scientist. Of course, you don't need religion for that, I'm sure aware of my fallibility.
Helpful quotation: "Religion provided motivation, not method, in Faraday's work." And a good thing, too!
The author likens him to Galileo, Newton, and Einstein because they were "free of blinding preconceptions about nature". I don't think this is true. They were just smart enough to develop their own, rather than absorbing the common views of their contemporaries. Think of Galileo and his determined opposition to the idea that the moon influenced the tides. So eager was he to oppose the commonly held view that the bodies in the heavens were special, divine, and determined events on the earth, that he derided Kepler's fairly reasonable arguments about the moon and the tides. There are examples for the others, as well.
Chapter 1: Improvement of the Mind
Tales of Michael Faraday, the aspiring young scientist and apprentice bookbinder. Working in the bookshop of the apparently very kind and generous Mr. Ribeau. Discovering Isaac Watts' "Improvement of the Mind", which seems to be full of good sense, at least from the quoted bits. Then comes James Tytler's 127 page article on electricity in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Good stuff, but already ten years old when Faraday was given it to bind. Then, just as Watts had told him to, and shortly before the outbreak of the War of 1812, Faraday attends his first science lecture. Faraday delivers his first scientific lecture, the notes for which still exist. (He uses "philosopher" to mean people who study scientific subjects.) Then he comes upon "Conversations in Chemistry" by Jane Marcet. Then he gets to attend a series of lectures by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. Davy presents his theory of acids, in opposition to Lavoisier's oxygen (the world "oxygen" means acid-former) theory. Davy believes that muriatic acid (HCl) contains no oxygen and argues for an electrical basis of acidity. This idea was not so popular at the time, but is far closer to the one we believe now. About a decade previously Allesandro Volta had described to all how one might construct a battery and Faraday sets about building his own. Davy had a two thousand layer electric pile in the basement of the Royal Institution with which he performed electrolytic experiments and powered arc lamps.
Chapter 2: Perceptions Perfectly Novel
Michael Faraday and Humphry Davy intersect and take off for the continent. There is a discussion of Davy's meteoric rise and his move from the Pneumatic Institute to the Royal Institution where he is instantly made chief lecturer. Davy is resolute about risking his health in the pursuit of science, inhaling all sorts of toxic gases and occasionally blowing things up. Somehow, he still remains a hottie. Like many famous Englishmen, Davy struggled with being famous and accomplished but not really accepted into the highest ranks of society. Davy did a masterful experiment on electrolysis of water, gradually eliminating all impurities to finally confirm that water is nothing but H and O. He also did a bunch of cool experiments with electrolysis showing some effects that I don't understand. He has three separate vessels connected by asbestos wicks. On the far left, sodium sulfate, on the far right barium nitrate. Apply a current, and after a while the middle vessel contains barium sulfate. Why is that?… (mais)