Sky and Ocean Joined: The US Naval Observatory 1830–2000

This volume is, first and foremost, a story of the relations between space, time and navigation, from the rise of the chronometer in the U.S. to the Global Positioning System of satellites, for which the Naval Observatory provides the time to a billionth of a second per day. It is a story of the history of technology, in the form of telescopes, lenses, detectors, calculators, clocks and computers over 170 years. It describes how one scientific institution under government and military patronage has contributed, through all the vagaries of history, to almost two centuries of unparalleled progress in astronomy.

History

Dick, Steven J.

Military

Cambridge University Press

This is a fascinating history of the debate over the question of extraterrestrial life from Classical Greece to the mid-eighteenth century. Using many primary and secondary sources, this book analyses why such great thinkers as Aristotle, Aquinas, Ockham, Galileo, Kepler, Huygens, and Kant thought the debate over the plurality of worlds a subject for serious discussion. The author shows how conflicting arguments from science, philosophy, and theology gradually converged to the same opinion - that intelligent life must fill the universe.

Plurality of Words: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Plurality of Worlds: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant

Science & Math

History & Philosophy

Throughout the twentieth century, from the furor over Percival Lowell's claim of canals on Mars to the sophisticated Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, otherworldly life has often intrigued and occasionally consumed science and the public. The Biological Universe provides a rich and colorful history of the attempts during the twentieth century to answer questions such as whether "biological law" reigns throughout the universe and whether there are other histories, religions, and philosophies outside those on Earth. Covering a broad range of topics, including the search for life in the solar system, the origins of life, UFOs, and aliens in science fiction, Steven J. Dick shows how the concept of extraterrestrial intelligence is a world view of its own, a "biophysical cosmology" that seeks confirmation no less than physical views of the universe. This book will fascinate astronomers, historians of science, biochemists, and science fiction readers.

The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science

Reference

Are we alone in the Universe? From the furor over Percival Lowell's claim of canals on Mars at the beginning of the century to the more recent controversial rock from Mars and the sophisticated Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), the prospect of otherworldly life has often titillated and occasionally consumed science and the public. The search for planetary systems, the quest to explain UFOs, and inquiries into the origin of life have fueled an abundance of popular and scientific literature. They have also provided Hollywood with fodder for some of the most popular films of our time, including ET, Aliens, Independence Day, and Contact. Lucid and accessible, Life on Other Worlds chronicles the history of the twentieth-century extraterrestrial debate. Putting the latest findings and heated controversies into a broader historical context, Steven Dick documents how the concept of extraterrestrial intelligence is a world view of its own--a "biophysical cosmology" that seeks confirmation no less than physical views of the Universe. The debate rests at the very limits of science, and attempts at confirmation only illuminate the nature of science itself. Dick shows that appreciating the history of the debate enables a better understanding of the nature of science, and is central to any forward-looking view of religion and philosophy. For anyone interested in a look over the edge of scientific discovery, Life on Other Worlds provides the exciting tale behind the greatest debate in the twentieth century. Dr. Steven J. Dick is an astronomer and historian of science at the U.S. Naval Observatory. He is the author of Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant (Cambridge, 1982) and Biological Universe (Cambridge, 1996).

Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate

Astronomy & Space Science

The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology

The Living Universe is a comprehensive, historically nuanced study of the formation of the new scientific discipline of exobiology and its transformation into astrobiology. Among many other themes, the authors analyze how research on the origin of life became wedded to the search for life on other planets and for extraterrestrial intelligence. Many scientific breakthroughs of the last forty years were either directly supported or indirectly spun off from NASA’s exobiology program, including cell symbiosis, the discovery of the Archaea, and the theories of Nuclear Winter and the asteroid extinction of the dinosaurs. Exobiology and astrobiology have generated public fascination, enormous public relations benefits for NASA, and––on the flip side of the coin––some of the most heated political wrangling ever seen in government science funding. Dick and Strick providea riveting overview of the search for life throughout the universe, with all of the Earthly complexities of a science-in-the-making and the imperfect humans called scientists. Their book will appeal to biologists, historians and philosophers of science, planetary scientists (including geologists), and an educated general readership interested in the investigation of life on other planets.

Strick, James E.

Rutgers University Press

Astronomical discovery involves more than detecting something previously unseen. The reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006, and the controversy it generated, shows that discovery is a complex and ongoing process - one comprising various stages of research, interpretation, and understanding. Ranging from Galileo's observation of Jupiter's satellites, Saturn's rings, and star clusters, to Herschel's nebulae and the modern discovery of quasars and pulsars, Steven J. Dick's comprehensive history identifies the concept of "extended discovery" as the engine of progress in astronomy. The text traces more than 400 years of telescopic observation, exploring how the signal discoveries of new astronomical objects relate to and inform one another, and why controversies such as Pluto's reclassification are commonplace in the field. The volume is complete with a detailed classification system for known classes of astronomical objects, offering students, researchers, and amateur observers a valuable reference and guide.

Discovery and Classification in Astronomy: Controversy and Consensus

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dick, Steven J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dick, Steven J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dick, Steven J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sky and Ocean Joined: The US Naval Observatory 1830–2000

Plurality of Words: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant

Plurality of Worlds: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant

The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science

Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate

The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science

Life on Other Worlds: The 20th-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate

Sky and Ocean Joined: The US Naval Observatory 1830–2000

The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology

Discovery and Classification in Astronomy: Controversy and Consensus