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Celestial Mechanics

The Waltz of the Planets

  • Book
  • © 2007

Overview

Authors:
  1. Alessandra Celletti

    1. Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’, Rome, Italy

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  2. Ettore Perozzi

    1. Telespazio, Rome, Italy

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    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Reinforces public awareness as a key issue for appreciating and exploiting the wealth of astronomical data and images gathered during the space age
  • Explains celestial mechanics without the use of mathematics
  • Authors provide an interdisciplinary cross section of all celestial mechanics

Part of the book series: Springer Praxis Books (PRAXIS)

Part of the book sub series: Popular Astronomy (POPULAR)

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxiii
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  2. Around and around

    Pages 1-23

  3. Three bodies and no solution

    Pages 25-42

  4. Celestial waltz

    Pages 43-57

  5. Cosmic spinning tops

    Pages 59-82

  6. Our chaotic Solar System

    Pages 83-106

  7. Singularities, collisions and threatening bodies

    Pages 107-128

  8. Of Moon and man

    Pages 129-148

  9. Rock around the planets

    Pages 149-172

  10. Lords of the rings

    Pages 173-186

  11. At the edge of the Solar System

    Pages 187-198

  12. On the road to exolife

    Pages 199-213

  13. Back Matter

    Pages 215-245
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Keywords

About this book

I was delighted to be invited by my colleagues Alessandra Celletti and Ettore Perozzi to provide a foreword to their book, Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets. Having known them for many years and long admired their work in the subject so many of us love and are fascinated by, 1 read with great attention and pleasure the text when it arrived. It is a formidable task they have set themselves, to provide a book that describes attempts by successive generations of astronomers from the dawn of history five millennia ago to observe, record and understand the phenomena of the heavens, particularly the intricate and perplexing behaviour of the planets. Sun and Moon. As naked eye astronomy became aided by the telescope and the photographic plate, and since the middle of the twentieth century, by instruments launched on spacecraft into circum- Earth orbit or to the Moon and planets and beyond, the discovery of new satellites, scores of them, and ring systems displaying new and initially perplexing behaviour also demanded explanations for that behaviour. It is also the inspiring story of science itself with special reference to how lonely individuals, impelled by curiosity and dedicated to seeking the truth, and nothing but the truth, about the fascinating phenomena of nature, ultimately became accepted as scientists, those players in the most successful endeavour ever engaged in by the human race.

Reviews

From the reviews:

"Celletti (Universita di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’) and Perozzi (Telespazio Rome) present a complicated subject in an engaging manner that is accessible to general readers. The writing is clear and authoritative, and the diagrams and tables help the nonexpert reader to visualize the key ideas without having to wade through the mathematics usually found in a book on this subject. … Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates." (T. Barker, CHOICE, Vol. 44 (11), August, 2007)

"The celestial mechanics can be considered as the mathematical part of the astronomy, requiring a high level in mathematics and reserved to specialists … . The Waltz of the Planets offer a different insight, providing very basic mathematical tools to the reader, sufficient to enable him or her to understand the main topics of celestial planetary dynamics. The purpose is to present this discipline as accessible, interesting and amusing … . A book to recommand to students, astronomers … and celestial mechanicians." (Anne Lemaître, Physicalia Magazine, Vol. 30 (1), 2008)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’, Rome, Italy

    Alessandra Celletti

  • Telespazio, Rome, Italy

    Ettore Perozzi

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