An former student of mine just gave me a very old astronomy textbook:
"A Textbook of General Astronomy", Charles Young, 1889.
It's pretty interesting to look at, and was thinking of trying to develop
a lesson around it for my intro astronomy or intro physics class. I thought
that the list members would interested in discussing what types of lessons
would be good.
When thinking about the differences between astronomy in 1889 and now, a
couple of things come to mind:
* at that time, it was thought that we were in the center of the
galaxy (which was the entire Universe at that time)
* The Andromeda Galaxy was believed to be a nebula
* There was an understanding of spectroscopy, but no atomic theory
* helium was not discovered, so it is not part of the list of
constituents of the Sun.
I am sure I could think of more, but I'd love to hear what others have to
say.
Brian Blais
Science and Technology Dept.
Bryant College