The General History of Astronomy: Volume 2, Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics, Volume 2, Part 2

Part B of Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics is the sequel to part A (Tycho Brahe to Newton), and continues the history of celestial mechanics and observational discovery through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Twelve different authors (astronomers, historians of astronomy, celestial mechanists and a statistician) have contributed their expertise in some 18 chapters, each of them intended to be accessible to the interested layman. An initial section deals with stages in the reception of Newton's inverse-square law as exact. In the remainder of the book a large place is given to the development of the mathematical theory of celestial mechanics from Clairaut and Euler to LeVerrier, Newcomb, Hill, and Poincaré - a topic rarely treated at once synoptically and in some detail. This emphasis is balanced by other chapters on observational discoveries and the rapprochement of observation and theory (forinstance, the discovery of Uranus and the asteroids,use of Venus transists to refine solar parallax, introduction of the method of least squares, and the development of planetary and satellite ephemerides). Lists of "Further Reading' provide entrée to the literature of the several topics.