A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics by Jean-Louis Tassoul and Monique Tassoul, Princeton University Press, 拢26.95, ISBN 069111711X
TO OUR naked eye stars are just bright specks of light floating in a sea of night. The exception is, of course, the sun. And even though that star is a mere 150,000,000 kilometres away, we can see into only the top 500 kilometres. That leaves a mystery 699,500 kilometres deep before we get to its centre. To understand what stars are, we have to shift our viewpoint from the observational to the theoretical, to fly the mind rather than polish yet another lens. To discern this change in our understanding of stars you need good guides; happily, here are two ideal companions for this intellectual journey: Canadian theoretical astrophysicists Jean-Louis Tassoul and Monique Tassoul with A Concise History of Solar and Stellar Physics.
Their book is refreshingly up to date. History for the Tassouls ended only yesterday. They also skilfully stress the mixture of cultural approaches: here the old fashioned astronomical observer, tainted by sterile teaching methods and shackled by 鈥済rand observatory鈥� conservatism; there the physicist, mathematician and data analyst straining to apply a new-fangled instrument, technique and computer to strange stellar phenomena. And then there is the theorist, sometimes ahead in understanding stellar complexities, sometimes struggling to catch up.
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A data boom swamped the theorist in the years following 1970, when continuous observations from space and over a huge range of wavelengths stretching from X-rays to long wave radio flooded in. Spherically symmetrical simplifications had to be speedily ditched, and stars needed to be treated as spinning, flattened, magnetic, convective, turbulent realities.
Stellar history is enriched by the great questions it evokes. But they do come pell-mell. No sooner had astronomers worked out how far away stars were than they were forced to explain how stars generated energy. No sooner had they worked out what stars were made of than they were asked to explain how these elements were produced in stellar cores and supernova explosions. Just as they thought that gas thermodynamics might explain stellar interiors along came quantum and nuclear physics. The picture had to be completely redrawn.
This is a fascinating story well told. A host of brief biographies, portraits and figures brings the text to life. The scholarly minded will be grateful for all the references to original papers and the student will find the simplified mathematics gives an insight to the underlying processes and problems.