Related papers: Two amateur astronomers at Berkeley
The size of the diameter of the Sun has been debated for a very long time. First tackled by the Greek astronomers from a geometric point of view, an estimate, although incorrect, has been determined, not truly called into question for…
Since the dawn of civilization, humanity has grappled with the big questions of existence and creation. Modern cosmology seeks to answer some of these questions using a combination of mathematics and measurement. The questions people hope…
A surprisingly large amount of information on our solar system can be gained from simple measurements of the apparent angular diameters of the sun and the moon. This information includes the average density of the sun, the distance between…
The observation of the Sun with a pinhole in order to check the first and the second Kepler's law has been realized for high school students. The settling of the experiment in order to minimize the errors of measure has permitted to verify…
The second part of the monograph contains the investigation of the structure of the Sun and planets of the solar system. This monograph is addressed to specialists in the field of theoretical and practical hydrodynamics and adjacent…
The non-spherical shape of the Sun has been invoked to explain the anomalous precession of Mercury. A brief history of some methods for measuring solar diameter is presented. Archimedes was the first to give upper and lower values for solar…
The measurement of the Sun's diameter has been first tackled by the Greek astronomers from a geometric point of view. Their estimation of ~1800", although incorrect, was not truly called into question for several centuries. The first…
Taking up a method devised by Taylor and Wheeler and collecting pieces of their work we offer a self-contained derivation of the formulae giving both the precession of the orbit of a planet around the Sun and the deflection angle of a light…
Both the basic educational contents for students and study programs for science teachers include several topics in physics and astronomy, from the simplest ones to others as advanced as nuclear fusion to explain stellar evolution and…
While Kepler was still working in Graz during 1598, some letters to his mentor Michael Maestlin demonstrate his interest in astronomical clocks and machines. The first letter, dated January 6, 1598 contains a detailed description of a…
With only five photographs of the Sun at different dates we show that the mass of Sun can be calculated by using a telescope, a camera, and the Kepler's third law. With these photographs we are able to calculate the distance between Sun and…
This writeup is an introduction to neutrino astronomy, addressed to astronomers and written by astroparticle physicists. While the focus is on achievements and goals in neutrino astronomy, rather than on the aspects connected to particle…
We discuss the opportunities for astronomical discovery via ground-based astrometry carried out in the United States during the 2010-2020 decade. We describe imminent scientific breakthroughs that can be achieved at both classic astrometric…
Posing Kepler's problem of motion around a fixed "sun" requires the geometric mechanician to choose a metric and a Laplacian. The metric provides the kinetic energy. The fundamental solution to the Laplacian (with delta source at the "sun")…
In this monograph (written in 1973-1974) the author uses the theory of mechanics of the inertless mass to investigate the structure of heavenly bodies of the solar system. The structure of the Sun and planets is the sole reason of the…
A comprehensive introduction to the theory of the solar neutrino problem is given that is aimed at instructors who are not experts in quantum field theory but would like to incorporate these ideas into instruction of advanced undergraduate…
Cosmology is a well established research area in physics while dynamical systems are well established in mathematics. It turns out that dynamical system techniques are very well suited to study many aspects of cosmology. The aim of this…
Throughout this book, we discuss some open problems in various branches of science, including mathematics, theoretical physics, astro-physics, geophysics etc. It is of our hope that some of the problems discussed in this book will find…
Why does the Sun have a radius around 696000~km? We will see in this article that dimensional arguments can be used to understand the size of the Sun and of a few other things along the way. These arguments are not new and can be found…
The modern methods of measurement of the solar diameter and oblateness are reviewed. Either ground-based or balloon-borne and satellite measurements are considered. The importance of solar astrometry for General Relativity is emphasized,…