History of Physical Astronomy: From the Earliest Ages to the Middle of the 19th Century. Comprehending a Detailed Account of the Establishment of the Theory of Gravitation by Newton, and Its Development by His Successors; with an Exposition of the Progress of Research on All the Other Subjects of Celestial Physics

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R. Baldwin, 1852 - Astronomy - 637 pages

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Page 30 - The third I now design to suppress. Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious Lady, that a man had as good be engaged in lawsuits, as have to do with her.
Page 207 - that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle, with a force whose direction is that of the line joining the two, and whose magnitude is directly as the product of their masses, and inversely as the square of their distances from each other.
Page 40 - I know not what the world will think of my labors, but to myself it seems that I have been but as a child playing on the seashore, now finding some pebble rather more polished, and now some shell rather more agreeably variegated than another, while the immense ocean of truth extended itself unexplored before me.
Page xxi - I will indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest confession that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians* to build up a tabernacle for my God far away from the confines of Egypt.
Page 166 - Formed a design in the beginning of this week, of investigating, as soon as possible after taking my degree, the irregularities in the motion of Uranus, which are yet unaccounted for; in order to find whether they may be attributed to the action of an undiscovered planet beyond it; and if possible thence to determine the elements of its orbit, etc. approximately, which would probably lead to its discovery.
Page xxi - It is now eighteen months since I got the first glimpse of light, three months since the dawn, very few days since the unveiled sun, most admirable to gaze on, burst out upon me. Nothing holds me: I will indulge in my sacred fury ; I will triumph over mankind by the honest confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to build up a tabernacle for my God, far from the confines of Egypt.
Page 510 - ... urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here ? "What shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly, and to hear the Professor of Philosophy at Pisa labouring before the Grand Duke, with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky.
Page 358 - I forbear to mention the chill and damp with which the darkness of this eclipse was attended, of which most spectators were sensible, and equally judges, or the concern that appeared in all sorts of animals, birds, beasts, and fishes upon the extinction of the sun ; since ourselves could not behold it without some sense of horror.
Page 253 - Saturn, perhaps, devoured his children ? Or were the appearances indeed illusion or fraud, with •which the glasses have so long deceived me as well as many others to whom I have shown them...
Page 448 - Royal was established in 1765, the duty of the incumbent was declared to be " to apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying the Tables of the Motions of the Heavens, and the places of the Fixed Stars in order to find out the so much desired Longitude at Sea for the perfecting -the Art of Navigation.

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