Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects

Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects

It is scarcely necessary for me to explain the plan of the present work, because I have alreadyin introducing my 'Light Science for Leisure Hours,' my 'Science Byways,' and my 'Pleasant Ways in Science'described the method on which, as I think, such treatises as the present should be written. This work deals with similar subjects in a similar way; but I think the experience I have acquired in writing other works on the same plan has enabled me to avoid some defects in the present work which I have recognised in the others. The list of subjects indicates sufficiently the range over which the present volume extends. Some of them might be judged by their names to be in no way connected with science, but it will be found that none have been treated except in their scientific significance, though in familiar and untechnical terms. One of the most important results of observations made upon the eclipse of July 29, 1878, indicates the existence of a law of sympathy, so to speak, between the solar corona and the sun-spots. The inquiry into this relation seems to me likely to lead to a very interesting series of researches, from which may possibly result an interpretation not only of the relation itself, should it be found really to exist, but of the mystery of the sun-spot period. I speak of the sun-spot period as mysterious, because even if we admit (which I think we cannot do) that the sun-spots are produced in some way by the action of the planets upon the sun, it would still remain altogether a mystery how this action operated. When all the known facts respecting the sun-spots are carefully considered, no theory yet advanced respecting them seems at all satisfactory, while no approach even has been made to an explanation of their periodic increase and diminution in number. This seems to me one of the most interesting problems which astronomers have at present to deal with; nor do I despair of seeing it satisfactorily solved within no very long interval of time. Should the recognition of a sympathy between the[Pg 2] corona and the sun-spots be satisfactorily established, an important step in advance will have been made,possibly even the key to the enigma will be found to have been discovered. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 54557
Author: Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Release Date: Apr 17, 2017
Format: eBook
Language: English