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A New Look at the Sun

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2016

J. P. Wild
J. P. Wild*
Affiliation:
CSIRO, Division of Radiophysics, Epping, N.S.W., Australia

Extract

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I have the feeling that to most astronomers the Sun is rather a nuisance. The reasons are quite complex. In the first place the Sun at once halves the astronomer’s observing time from 24 to 12 hours, and then during most of the rest of the time it continues its perversity by illuminating the Moon. Furthermore I have met numerous astronomers who regard solar astronomy to be now, as always before, in a permanent state of decline - rather like Viennese music or English cricket. Nevertheless those who study the Sun and its planetary system occasionally make significant contributions. There were, for instance, Galileo and Newton who gave us mechanics and gravitation; Fraunhofer who gave us atomic spectra; Eddington and Bethe who pointed the way to nuclear energy; and Alfvén who gave us magneto-hydrodynamics. Perhaps the point to be recognized is that the Sun has more immediately to offer to physics rather than to astronomy. That is why it is quite rare that a solar man finds himself with a large captive audience of mainline astronomers: and so the responsibility weighs heavily on my shoulders tonight.

Type
Invited Discourses
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 3: Highlights of Astronomy. As presented at the XVth General Assembly of the IAU, 1973 , 1974 , pp. 3 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1974

References

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