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Book Review
TAMIL
On astronomy
P. SUNDARESAN
VAANA SAASTHIRAM: Venkatam; Vikatan Prasuram, 757, Anna Salai, Chennai-600002. Rs. 65.
THIS PUBLICATION carrying a mine of information on the origin and growth of astronomy makes compelling reading besides providing a springboard to further scientific research. It transpires that, in the bygone era, astronomy and astrology were closely linked. With the advent of the 17th century, rapid advance in science resulted in astronomy gaining more importance. Far from viewing celestial objects with naked eyes, today’s astronomers use the most sophisticated instruments to collect data. Among the important areas covered in the book are the universe, the Big Bang, black hole, comets, meteors and asteroids, galaxies, planets, satellites, stars, sun and solar systems, moon, volcanoes and earthquakes. To mention just three of the several trailblazing research highlighted in the book: Aryabhatta ( 476-550), hailed as the founder of scientific astronomy, in whose memory India’s first satellite was named; Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo (1564-1642) applied the telescope to astronomy and observed craters on the moon, sunspots, Jupiter’s satellites and the phases of Venus — his acceptance of the Copernican system was rejected by the Catholic Church, and under the threat of torture from the inquisition he publicly recanted his heretical views; Subramanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995) worked on stellar evolution indicating the process whereby some stars eventually collapse to form a dense white dwarf which came to be known as “Chandrasekhar line.” He bagged the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics in recognition of his signal contribution to the theory of black holes.
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