Socrates knew all that was known by his contemporaries. But already in the Middle Ages it was becoming difficult for a single man to have a truly encyclopedic view of all human knowledge. It is true that Pico della Mirandola, Pius II, Leonardo da Vinci, and several other great minds were thoroughly in possession of considerable know ledge, and knew all that one could know, except no doubt for some techniques. The encyclopedists of the 18th century had to be content with an admirable survey: they could not go into details, and their work is a collective one, the specialized science of each collaborator compensating for the insufficiencies of the others. We know very well that our science of today is a science of specialists. Not only is it impossible for anyone person to assimilate the totality of human knowledge, it is impossible even to know ones own discipline perfectly thoroughly. Each year the presses of science pro duce a frightening quantity of printed paper. Even in very limited fields, new journals are created every day, devoted to extremely specialized, often very narrowly defined subjects. It is indeed evident that in a field whose scope extends well beyond astronomical or astrophysical research, it is materially impossible to be informed of everything, even with the richest of libraries at hand.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Experimental Astronomy
Authors: Jean-Claude Pecker
Series Title: Astrophysics and Space Science Library
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3302-2
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1970
Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-277-0157-2Due: 31 July 1970
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-010-3304-6Published: 05 November 2011
eBook ISBN: 978-94-010-3302-2Published: 06 December 2012
Series ISSN: 0067-0057
Series E-ISSN: 2214-7985
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 105
Additional Information: Originally published in French
Topics: Astronomy, Observations and Techniques

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Experimental Astronomy

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

Front Matter

Astronomy — An Experimental Science?

Artificial Satellites as Celestial Bodies, or the Introduction of ‘Experimental Celestial Mechanics’

Initiation in Astronautics

What of Experimental Astrophysics?

The Direct Exploration of the Extraterrestrial World

The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds

Conclusion

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