Astronomy
Portrait of Roger Long
Machina Coelestis
Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) is justly famous as an astronomer, but his livelihood came from the family’s brewing business, and Johannes himself was admitted to the Brewer’s Guild in 1636. His interests lay elsewhere, however. Devoting himself to constructing astronomical instruments and, most importantly, to carefully and precisely grinding lenses for telescopes, he developed an extremely well-equipped 17th-century observatory in Danzig, Poland.
Portrait of Agnes Mary Clerke from Scientific Identity: Portraits from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.
Opuscula Iuventutis Mathematica Curiosa...
The first part of this work describes a newly invented instrument of the era: a planisphere illustrated with a plate. A planisphere is a star chart analog computing instrument in the form of two adjustable disks that rotate on a common pivot. It can be adjusted to display the visible stars for any time and date. It is an instrument to assist in learning how to recognize stars and constellations. The astrolabe, an instrument that has its origins in the Hellenistic civilization, is a predecessor of the modern planisphere.
Mécanique Céleste
Pierre-Simon Laplace was a mathematician who firmly believed the world was entirely deterministic. Like a man with a hammer to whom everything was a nail, to Laplace the universe was nothing but a giant problem in calculus. Laplace's Mécanique céleste (Celestial Mechanics), essentially translated Newton's geometrical study of mechanics to one based on calculus.
Results of Astronomical Observations Made During the Years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope
Results of astronomical observations made during the years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope: being the completion of a telescopic survey of the whole surface of the visible heavens, commenced in 1825...
by Sir John F. W.Herschel. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1847.
Geometriae pars Universalis
Three major works of Scottish mathematician and astronomer James Gregory (1638-1675) who discovered infinite series representations for a number of trigonometry functions, although he is mostly remembered for his description of the first practical reflecting telescope, now known as the Gregorian telescope. "Of British mathematicians of the seventeenth century Gregory was only excelled by Newton." (Gjertsen, Newton handbook, 245) Bound with:
