The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5), by
Henry Smith Williams

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Title: A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5)

Author: Henry Smith Williams

Release Date: April, 1999 [Etext #1707]
Posting Date: November 18, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF SCIENCE, V3 ***

Produced by Charles Keller

A HISTORY OF SCIENCE

MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES

By Henry Smith Williams, M.D., Ll.D.

Assisted By Edward H. Williams, M.D.

In Five Volumes

Volume III.

CONTENTS

BOOK III

CHAPTER I. THE SUCCESSORS OF NEWTON IN ASTRONOMY

The work of Johannes Hevelius--Halley and Hevelius--Halley's observation
of the transit of Mercury, and his method of determining the parallax of
the planets--Halley's observation of meteors--His inability to
explain these bodies--The important work of James Bradley--Lacaille's
measurement of the arc of the meridian--The determination of the
question as to the exact shape of the earth--D'Alembert and his
influence upon science--Delambre's History of Astronomy--The
astronomical work of Euler.

CHAPTER II. THE PROGRESS OF MODERN ASTRONOMY

The work of William Herschel--His discovery of Uranus--His discovery
that the stars are suns--His conception of the universe--His deduction
that gravitation has caused the grouping of the heavenly bodies--The
nebula, hypothesis,--Immanuel Kant's conception of the formation of the
world--Defects in Kant's conception--Laplace's final solution of the
problem--His explanation in detail--Change in the mental attitude of the
world since Bruno--Asteroids and satellites--Discoveries of Olbersl--The
mathematical calculations of Adams and Leverrier--The discovery of the
inner ring of Saturn--Clerk Maxwell's paper on the stability of Saturn's
rings--Helmholtz's conception of the action of tidal friction--Professor
G. H. Darwin's estimate of the consequences of tidal action--Comets
and meteors--Bredichin's cometary theory--The final solution of the
structure of comets--Newcomb's estimate of the amount of cometary dust
swept up d