Abstract
Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for his heretical ideas in 1600.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The development of nuclear physics has led to a detailed understanding of how “opaque matter” can become “lucid matter” under the right conditions. Even more astonishing is that most of the elements from which we are made were actually produced in the stars themselves (as we will discuss later).
- 2.
This fact was already known in the mid-1800s, but was explained only much later by quantum mechanics.
- 3.
Although light emitted by atoms has a discrete line spectrum, in stellar interiors atoms are broken up into electrons and nuclei which scatter off one another, producing a continuous spectrum.
- 4.
Note that Doppler effect can be used only to measure velocities along the line of sight, that is, towards or away from us. Transverse velocities in the orthogonal directions cannot be measured in this way.
- 5.
An arc second is a measure of angle. There are 360° in a full circle, 60′ in a degree, and 60″ in an arc minute. An arc second is a tiny angular measure (it is about the angle subtended by a dime placed 4 km away).
- 6.
When an ordinary star (with a mass similar to the Sun’s) depletes its nuclear fuel, it becomes a very dense compact white dwarf star. The pull of gravity in a white dwarf is balanced by the pressure of the material within the star.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Perlov, D., Vilenkin, A. (2017). Observational Cosmology. In: Cosmology for the Curious. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57040-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57040-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57038-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57040-2
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)