Required Materials
1. M. J. Crowe, Modern Theories of the Universe from Herschel to Hubble (Dover).
2. M. J. Crowe, Ideas of Extraterrestrial Life in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Poverty Publishing Company).

Materials on Reserve
Berendzen, Richard, R. Hart, and D. Seeley, Man Discovers the Galaxies.
Crowe, Michael J., The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750­1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell.
Crowe, Michael J. (ed.), The Letters and Papers of Sir John Herschel: A Guide to the Manuscripts and Microfilm (in the series: Collections from the Royal Society).
Crowe, Michael J. (ed.), History of Modern Astronomy: Lectures, Bibliographies, and Stuff. This binder contains materials relevant to the course, e.g., some of the lectures and bibliographies on various topics will be placed in this binder.
Gingerich, Owen (ed.), Astrophysics and Twentieth-Century Astronomy to 1950.
Guthke, Karl, The Last Frontier: Imagining Other Worlds from the Copernican Revolution to Modern Science Fiction.
Hetherington, Norriss, Science and Objectivity: Episodes in the History of Astronomy.
Hetherington, Norriss (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cosmology.
Hoskin, Michael (ed.), Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy.
Hoskin, Michael, Stellar Astronomy: Historical Studies.
Hoyt, William Graves, Planets X and Pluto.
Jaki, Stanley, The Milky Way.
Kellerman, K., and B. Sheets (ed.), Serendipitous Discoveries in Radio Astronomy.
Lankford, John (ed.), History of Astronomy: An Encyclopedia.
Learner, Richard, Astronomy through the Telescope.
Leverington, David, History of Astronomy from 1890 to the Present
McCrea, W. H., The Royal Greenwich Observatory.
North, John D., Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology.
Pannekoek, A., History of Astronomy.
Shapley, Harlow, and Helen Howarth (eds.), Source Book in Astronomy [1500­1900].
Smith, Robert, The Expanding Universe: Astronomy's Great Debate 1900­1931.
Whitney, Charles, The Discovery of Our Galaxy.

Four levels of reading are provided for this course.
1. Required readings follow the word read in the schedule below.
2. Strongly recommended: Graduate students should plan to read most of the strongly recommended writings.
3. Recommended: Graduate students should plan to read some reading marked "recommended."
4. Bibliographies relevant to each topic will be distributed in class; graduate students should plan to read some materials of their own choosing from the items listed in these bibliographies.
Note: Where an assigned reading is from a journal, the journal volume has not been placed on reserve. After reading or photocopying a paper from a journal, please return the journal to its proper shelf location as soon as you have finished with it so that it will be available for other students.

Class Schedule
Note: The course materials have been divided into topics, which roughly correspond to individual classes. Please complete the readings for the topic before it is discussed in class.

1. Introduction
1. Preliminaries
2. Overview of the development of astronomy in the modern period
3. Philosophy of astronomy
4. Bibliography of astronomy
5. Research topics

2. Astronomical Instruments and Observatories; The Problem of Longitude;
Read:
Preface and pp. 1­14 of Modern Theories of the Universe from Herschel to Hubble (hereafter MTUHH).
Browse: Dava Sobel and William J. H. Andrewes, The Illustrated Longitude (Walker and Co., 1998) (on reserve).

3. Founding of the Greenwich and Paris Observatories
Read: W. H. McCrea, The Royal Greenwich Observatory, pp. 1­22, 76­9 (on reserve).

4. Astronomical Instruments; Correctional Factors; Stellar Distances
Read:
1) pp. 15­35 of MTUHH.
2) Harlow Shapley and Helen Howarth (eds.), Source Book in Astronomy [1500­1900], pp. 70­1 (Roemer) and 103­12 (Bradley); note: one copy of this book is on reserve; other copies are available in the stacks.

5. Stellar Astronomy before 1780: Nebulae and the Milky Way
Read:
1) pp. 35­70 of MTUHH.
2) M. J. Crowe, Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750­1900, pp. 41­59 (on reserve).
Recommended reading: Immanuel Kant, Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (the only complete translation is that by Stanley Jaki).

6. William Herschel: Introduction
Read:
1) Ch. 3 of MTUHH.
2) Shapley and Howarth, Source Book, 140­2 (on reserve).
3) Some study of William Herschel's life and career; at a minimum, read Michael Hoskin, "William Herschel" in Dictionary of Scientific Biography. It would be ideal to read a biography of Herschel, possibly that by Angus Armitage.
4) M. E. W. Williams, "Was There Such a Thing as Stellar Astronomy in the Eighteenth Century?" History of Science, 21 (1983), 369­85.
5) Crowe, Debate, 59­70.
Strongly recommended reading: R. H. Austin, "Uranus Observed," British Journal for the History of Science, 3 (1967), 275­84.
Recommended reading: Crowe, Debate, pp. 70­80 (on reserve).

7. William Herschel (concluded)

8. Nebulae and the "Island Universe" Theory in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
Read: Ch. 4 of MTUHH.

9. John Herschel and Mid-Nineteenth Century Astronomy
Read:
1) Shapley and Howarth, Source Book in Astronomy [1500­1900], pp. 238­44 (J. Herschel) (on reserve).
2) M. J. Crowe, "Introduction" (an essay on John Herschel's life and career), in M. J. Crowe (ed.), The Letters and Papers of Sir John Herschel: A Guide to the Manuscripts and Microfilm, pp. v­xxvii (on reserve).
3) Michael Hoskin, "John Herschel's Cosmology," Journal for the History of Astronomy, 18 (1987), 1­34.
4) Crowe, Debate, pp. 216­21, 310­11, 390­1 (on reserve).
Recommended reading: Walter Cannon, "John Herschel and the Idea of Science," Journal of the History of Ideas, 22 (1961), 215­39.

10. The New Astronomy to Leavitt
Read:
1) Chs. 5 and 6 of MTUHH.
2) Crowe, Debate, pp. 359­63 (on reserve).
Recommended reading: Owen Gingerich (ed.), Astrophysics and Twentieth-Century Astronomy to 1950, pp. 3­23 (on reserve).

11. Background to the Great Debate
Read:
Ch. 7 of MTUHH.
Recommended reading: Robert Smith, The Expanding Universe, pp.1­54 (on reserve).

12. The Great Debate
Read:
1) Ch. 8 of MTUHH.
2) Michael Hoskin, "The Great Debate: What Really Happened," in Michael Hoskin, Stellar Astronomy: Historical Studies, pp. 174­88. (on reserve).
Recommended reading: Robert Smith, The Expanding Universe, pp. 55­96 (on reserve).

13. Edwin Hubble and the Resolution of the Great Debate
Read:
1) Ch. 8 of MTUHH.
2) Richard Berendzen, "[Review of] Harlow Shapley, Through Rugged Ways to the Stars," Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1 (1970), 85­7.
Recommended reading: Robert Smith, The Expanding Universe, pp. 97­201 (on reserve).

14. Midterm Exam
A midterm exam will be given at approximately this point in the course.

Note: Recommended readings for this section: the corresponding portions of Crowe, Extraterrestrial Life Debate (on reserve).

1. Piety, Poetry, and the Plurality of Worlds and Pluralism Challenged
Read:
1) Crowe, Ideas of Extraterrestrial Life in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Preface, Ch. 1, and the Paine-Shelley portion of Ch. 2 and
2) Robert Naeye, "OK, Where Are They?" from Astronomy, (July, 1996), 36­43.
Suggestion: Concentrate on the materials by Wm. Herschel, Pope, Young, Whewell, and Paine.

2. Some Responses to the Challenges, including the "Great Moon Hoax"
Read: Crowe, Ideas, Ch.2 (remaining sections) and Ch. 3.
Suggestion: Ch. 3 can be skimmed.

3. Extraterrestrials at Mid-Century: William Whewell's Of the Plurality of Worlds: An Essay
Read: Crowe, Ideas, Ch. 4.

4. Extraterrestrials in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century
Read: Crowe, Ideas, Ch. 5.
Suggestion: The selections by Tennyson and Meynell deserve special attention.

5. The Controversy Concerning the Canals of Mars
Read: Howarth and Shapley, Source Book, pp. 380­93.
Recommended reading: Crowe, Debate, pp. 480­546.

1. The Astronomer's Ken: Planetary Discoveries from Uranus to Neptune
Read:
1) Shapley and Howarth, Source Book in Astronomy, pp. 245­54 (Adams and Leverrier) and 338­44 (Newcomb).
2) Simon Schaffer, "Uranus and the Establishment of Herschel's Astronomy," Journal for the History of Astronomy, 13 (1981), 11­26.
3) Robert Smith, "The Cambridge Network in Action: The Discovery of Neptune," Isis, 80 (1989), 395­422.
Recommended readings:
1) William Graves Hoyt, Planets X and Pluto, pp. 25­82.
2) Morton Grosser, The Discovery of Neptune.
3) Richard Baum and William Sheehan, In Search of Planet Vulcan.

2. The Astronomer's Ken: Planetary Discoveries from Neptune to Pluto (continued)
Assignment: Write a short essay (1 to 2 pages) on lessons to be learned from the history of planetary discovery.

1. Radio Astronomy
Read:
1) Richard Learner, Astronomy through the Telescope, pp. 130­40.
2) Jocelyn Bell Burnell, "The Discovery of Pulsars," pp. 160­70 and Maarten Schmidt, "Discovery of Quasars," pp. 171­3 in K. Kellerman and B. Sheets (ed.), Serendipitous Discoveries in Radio Astronomy.
Recommended readings:
1) S. W. Woolgar, "Writing an Intellectual History of Scientific Achievement: The Use of Discovery Accounts," Social Studies of Science, 6 (1976), 395­422.
2) David Edge O., "The Sociology of Innovations in Modern Astronomy," Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 18 (1977), 326­39.

2. Radio Astronomy (concluded)

Note: My best estimate is that we will have finished 23 of the 29 classes by this point of time. We need to set aside one other class for the concluding class. Consequently, we may have about 5 classes open. There are various topics on which we may wish to use these five (or fewer) classes. Among the possibilities in this regard are:
1. Student presentations
2. American astronomy
3. History of archaeoastronomy
4. Astronomy and religion
5. Astronomy of the Southern Hemisphere
6. Cosmogony
7. Gravitational astronomy from Newton to Laplace
8. History of cometary studies
9. History of selenography (lunar mapping).
10. History of the nebular hypothesis
11. History of the study of a particular planet, e.g., Saturn
12. History of theories of the sun

Concluding Discussion: The Methodology of Astronomy; Humanity in the Cosmos
Reread: 1) MTUHH, Ch.1, pp. 1­5 and "Epilogue."
Recommended reading: Norriss Hetherington, Science and Objectivity: Episodes in the History of Astronomy.

Writing Requirements:
1. All graduate students are expected to complete a research paper of approximately 15 pages in length on a topic agreed to beforehand. Undergraduates are expected to prepare a shorter essay. In writing these essay, avoid the mistakes noted in the style sheet distributed in class. Please submit duplicate copies of the paper, one of which will be returned to you with commentary and grade.
2. Each student should plan on doing an in-class report on some topic or publication relevant to the course materials. In some cases, these can be tied to the topic of the student's research paper.

Final Exam
It will very probably consist of three essay questions and 6 identifications.
Time: 10:30­12:30 on Monday, Dec. 13, 1999.