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CLAIRAUT, Alexis. De l Aberration apparente des Eoiles, cause par le movement progressif de la Lumiere in Histoire de l Academie Royale des Sciences avec les Memoires de Mathematique et de Physique Annee 1737; (Amsterdam edition), Pierre Mortier, 1741. 165mm; vi, 164pp, 344pp, 11 small folding plates. Frontis. Bound in the original leather, with raised bands, and gilt-stamped dentelles. There is some moderate scuffing on the panels and bands; the red calf spine label is intact and legible; the black label showing the year on the next panel is mostly gone. GOOD condition, with the binding very strong and the paper clean and crisp. [++] Alexis Clairaut (1713-1765) was a French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer known for wide-ranging contributions to celestial mechanics, mathematics, and geodesy. He made significant advancements in understanding the motion of celestial bodies, the shape of the Earth, and the study of gravitational forces. He proposed a mathematical model known as the Clairaut's theorem, which takes into account the effects of both rotation and gravity on the Earth's shape. Clairaut's theorem suggests that the Earth is an ellipsoid slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator, similar to an oblate spheroid. However, he also recognized that other factors, such as variations in density and gravitational forces within the Earth, could cause additional irregularities in its shape. These irregularities led to deviations from a perfect oblate spheroid, introducing local variations in the Earth's surface.[++] Stellar aberration (or displacement) is an astronomical phenomenon that occurs due to the motion of the Earth around the Sun and the finite speed of light--it causes a slight apparent shift in the positions of stars as observed from Earth. It also provides empirical evidence that the Earth orbits the Sun, which as it turns out winds up being a long and complex story best told elsewhere. Stellar aberration is taken into account to analyze star positions and make calculations for celestial navigation or astrometry--it is an important correction factor to consider to accurately determine the true positions of stars and celestial objects in the sky. James Bradley brilliantly discovered the concept in 1727 ("while he was searching for evidence of stellar parallax.which in principle ought to be observable if the Copernican theory of the solar system is correct" (Mathpages) conceiving it in classical terms, of a corpuscular theory of light in which light is made of particles and resulting in one of the easrliest measurements of the velocity of light), though Clairaut's work provides a more accurate mathematical description of stellar aberration compared to the simpler equation formulated by Bradley. Clairaut's equation takes into account the inclination of the Earth's orbit and the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit around the Sun and describes how the angle of aberration varies with the celestial coordinates of the observed star. [++] Alexis Clairaut (1713-1765) was a French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer known for wide-ranging contributions to celestial mechanics, mathematics, and geodesy. He made significant advancements in understanding the motion of celestial bodies, the shape of the Earth, and the study of gravitational forces. [++] See: Albert B. Stewart, "The Discovery of Stellar Aberration" in Scientific American, Vol. 210, No. 3 (March 1964), pp. 100-109. AND: Harlow Shapley, Howarth Helen E., A source book in astronomy (1929), 103 8 AND George Sarton, Discovery of the aberration of light , Isis, xvi (1931), 1931 65. Seller Inventory # ABE-1689783224268
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