The View from the Observatory: History is Too Important to be Left to the Historians

Abstract

"A research astronomer and historian of astronomy begins this paper1 with a statement on his views of the latter subject. It helps anyone who wishes to understand its history to know and understand astronomy. History must be based on facts, which archives, scientific papers, and books can provide. Immersion in a field like astronomy makes one better qualified to understand what others have done in that field, and to write about it, as Henrik Ibsen, Ernest Hemingway, Barbara Tuchman, and John Grisham have all stated and proved by example. The second part of the paper is a progress report on the author’s current project, the life and scientific career of the early American astronomer and solar physicist Charles A. Young (1834–1908). Astronomy was very different in his “small-telescope era”, but there are many modern resonances in his problems and their solutions."