Re: Old Astronomy Textbook

["David T. Marx" <dtmarx@SIU.EDU>]

Some thoughts off the top of my head...

(1)  This type of book is more interesting to people like us than it would be to the
general student population.

(2)  I think intro. astronomy is better taught as a "state of what we know" course than
by unecessarily giving the historical development of our understanding.  The "what
we know" is reinforced by "why we know it" not by "what did we believe before
modern tools became available."

(3)  On the other hand, it could be used for a lecture on the scientific method and
how science advances.


On 20 Feb 2002 at 17:11, Brian Blais wrote:

>     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