A History of Modern Planetary Physics Transmuted Past [Hardcover]

Transmuted Past summarizes the attempts to estimate the age of the Earth during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.The three volumes that together make up A History of Modern Planetary Physics present a survey of the different theories about the origin of the solar system and the nature of the Earth. Transmuted Past follows the development of theories of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis in the twentieth century and describes radiometric methods for estimating the age of the Earth. Professor Brush also offers perspectives on the changing reputation of planetary science relative to the pure sciences, such as physics, and a comparison of history and geology as ways of studying the past.The three volumes that together make up A History of Modern Planetary Physics present a survey of the different theories about the origin of the solar system and the nature of the Earth. Transmuted Past follows the development of theories of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis in the twentieth century and describes radiometric methods for estimating the age of the Earth. Professor Brush also offers perspectives on the changing reputation of planetary science relative to the pure sciences, such as physics, and a comparison of history and geology as ways of studying the past.Transmuted Past follows the development of theories of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis in the twentieth century and describes radiometric methods for estimating the age of the Earth. Professor Brush also offers perspectives on the changing reputation of planetary science relative to the pure sciences, such as physics, and a comparison of history and geology as ways of studying the past.Part I. Earth/History: 1. Introduction; 2. History and geology as ways of studying the past; 3. Kelvin and geological time; 4. Planetary science: from underground to underdog; Part II. Time and the Elements: 5. Cosmic evolution of matter; 6. Geochronology in the 20th century; 7. Stellar evolution and the origin l#A