Two Substantial Popularisations
History of Astronomy. By Giorgio Abetti. (Sidgwick & Jackson. 25s.) BOTH of these works are presented as high-class popular accounts of their subjects. The first is written by a professor of mathematics in New York University; the second, by the director of an astro- physical observatory in Italy.
Professor Kline begins by setting forth his position. 'Mathematics,' le says, 'is a body of knowledge. But it contains no truths. The contrary belief, namely, that mathematics is an unassailable collec- tion of truths, that it is like a final revelation from God such as religionists believe the Bible to be, is a popular fallacy.' The reviewer questions this; the statement, The sum of 3 and 4 is equal to the sum of 5 and 2,' is a theorem of mathematics which is true universally and eternally. In justification of his view, Kline says, 'The creation of non-Euclidean geometry rudely thrust mathematics off the pedestal of truth.' The matter is cleared up if we refer to Whitehead and Russell's Principla Mathematica, and there learn that only what these distinguished authors call pure mathematics is true beyond question, and that geometry is not classified as belonging to it.
The reference to 'religionists' in the sentence quoted above gives a hint of something that is characteristic of the work under review,- namely a violently anti-religious tone. This appears very early in the account of the priests of ancient Egypt: 'Knowing when the [Nile] flood was due, the priests could pretend to bring it about with their rites while making the poor farmer pay for the performance.' But it gathers intensity when Christianity comes on the scene. 'Priests and ministers affirmed that nearly everyone went to hell after death, and described in greatest detail the hideous, unbearable tortures, that awaited the eternally damned. Boiling brimstone and intense flames burned victims who, nevertheless, were not consumed but continued to suffer these unabating tortures.' As statements of this kind are common in books of popular science, it may be worth while to point out their falsity. Catholic teaching involves the doctrine of purga- tory: and the average Catholic, who is not living in flagrant and unrepented sin, is encouraged to look forward to a life beyond the grave in which, after a purification in purgatory (a very different conception from hell), he will enter on eternal happiness. For Protestantism, it suffices to quote the Anglican burial service, which goes back to the early years of the Reformation. By direction of the rubric, it is to be read over all professing Christians except excommuni- cates and suicides: the mourners 'commit this body to the grave, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.' 'Neither Catholic nor Protestant is indebted, for liberation from ecclesiastical terrors to any influence of mathematics on western culture, as Pro- fessor Kline would have us believe. This is a long book-484 pages—covering a vast extent of ground: in general, lucid and accurate so long as it remains strictly in the region of mathematics; but its mathematical physics is less trust- worthy: in particular, the origin of the electromagnetic theory of light is completely misrepresented. 'While working with the laws of electromagnetism,' says Professor Kline, `Maxwell made a deductiOn showing that the laws were inconsistent with another law of mathe- matical physics, known as the equation of continuity. To a mathe- matician a contradiction is intolerable, and Maxwell sought a resolution of the difficulty.' This statement is incorrect: the pre- Maxwellian theory was free from contradiction, and the Maxwellian changes were introduced on quite other grounds.
There is an account of the theory of relativity, which is attributed to Einstein. 'In modern times one man, the creator of the theory of relativity, pre-eminently displayed such signs of greatness. With brilliance exceeded only by his modesty Albert Einstein attacked the obvious and revolutionised almost all branches of scientific and philosophic thought.' Professor Kline ignores the fact that the Principle of Relativity had been so named, and correctly formulated, by Poincare, before Einstein published anything on the subject. The reader will smile when he reads elsewhere in the book: 'Newton's fame spread until it became comparable to Einstein's today.'
The book cannot be recommended as a safe guide to the beginner: but it gives mathematicians the opportunity (in the words of the author, who sometimes lapses into colloquial American) to spoof their own work.
The second book under review is written by Professor Giorgio Abetti, who some thirty years ago succeeded his father Antonio Abetti as Director of the Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri (Florence). and is well-known both for his work in solar physics and also for his researches on the science of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The beginning, about prehistoric matters, is sketchy, but the story gathers momentum as it goes forward, and the parts of the book that deal with the mediaeval period and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are of the highest order of excellence, particularly where Italian work is concerned. Special mention should be made of the account of Copernicus (who studied for many years in Bologna and Padua, and lived for a year in Rome), and the twenty-four pages on Galileo, on whom Professor Abetti is the chief living authority.
The discoveries of Newton and his great contemporaries and successors are then described. When the author comes to the origins of astrophysics, he is less successful: he seems to be unaware of the part played by the English school—Stokes,. W. Thomson (Kelvin) and Balfour Stewart—in 1852-58, which preceded the work of Kirchhoff. The recent English theorists—Eddington, Jeans and Milne—are on the other hand very adequately and appreciatively treated: and full justice is done to the splendid work of the American observers of the last eighty years. There is a lucid account of modern types of instrumental equipment, such as the Schmidt combination of a concave mirror with a correcting plate, and of the great observatories in which the instruments are used. There are many good full-page plates.
Most of the popular astronomical publications of the last few years in English have given great prominence to theoretical cosmology. The new work in that subject is undoubtedly brilliant, but it has had a character so speculative as to draw down on it condemnation in the presidential address of the Royal Astronomical Society last year. Professor Abetti has apparently decided that its hypotheses and conclusions are not as yet sufficiently well established to justify their inclusion in the present work.
EDMUND WHITTAKER
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