Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Family background in County Cork
- 2 Ireland and Italy
- 3 London, the literary scene
- 4 The History of Astronomy
- 5 A circle of astronomers
- 6 A visit to South Africa
- 7 The System of the Stars
- 8 Social life in scientific circles
- 9 Homer, the Herschels and a revised History
- 10 The opinion moulder
- 11 Popularisation, cryogenics and evolution
- 12 Problems in Astrophysics
- 13 Women in astronomy in Britain in Agnes Clerke's time
- 14 Revised System of the Stars
- 15 Cosmogonies, cosmology and Nature's spiritual clues
- 16 Last days and retrospect
- 17 Epilogue
- Notes
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - Problems in Astrophysics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Family background in County Cork
- 2 Ireland and Italy
- 3 London, the literary scene
- 4 The History of Astronomy
- 5 A circle of astronomers
- 6 A visit to South Africa
- 7 The System of the Stars
- 8 Social life in scientific circles
- 9 Homer, the Herschels and a revised History
- 10 The opinion moulder
- 11 Popularisation, cryogenics and evolution
- 12 Problems in Astrophysics
- 13 Women in astronomy in Britain in Agnes Clerke's time
- 14 Revised System of the Stars
- 15 Cosmogonies, cosmology and Nature's spiritual clues
- 16 Last days and retrospect
- 17 Epilogue
- Notes
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Magnum Opus 1903
Agnes Clerke's third and last major book was Problems in Astrophysics. This was the book that she had told Gill, as far back as September 1894, was ‘haunting’ her, and which she felt ‘driven to try’. It was to be very different from her other books, and very ambitious – not an account merely of past events and achievements, but of desiderata and of ideas for future research. It was to be, she believed, her magnum opus.
It would appear that Agnes Clerke began writing in earnest at the beginning of 1898, after her mother's death. Gill's reaction, on hearing that the book was in progress and to be finished in a year, was:
‘What a woman!’ and then ‘what a foolish woman’. I meant by ‘foolish woman’ that you were risking not only health but opportunity by finishing such a work in so short a time; time to do what I expect you to do in that book in a year must either kill you, or fail to do you justice, or both.
She explained the plan of the book, which would include besides the sun only stars and nebulae.
It is not bound to be exhaustive. Planets involve very different considerations belonging at present mainly to the telescopic department … So I think of leaving them for another volume, should my powers last long enough to reach it.
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- Information
- Agnes Mary Clerke and the Rise of Astrophysics , pp. 161 - 174Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002