Sky and Ocean Joined: The US Naval Observatory 1830-2000

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Cambridge University Press, 2003 - History - 609 pages
As one of the oldest scientific institutions in the United States, the US Naval Observatory has a rich and colourful history. This volume is, first and foremost, a story of the relations between space, time and navigation, from the rise of the chronometer in the United States to the Global Positioning System of satellites, for which the Naval Observatory provides the time to a billionth of a second per day. It is a story of the history of technology, in the form of telescopes, lenses, detectors, calculators, clocks and computers over 170 years. It describes how one scientific institution under government and military patronage has contributed, through all the vagaries of history, to almost two centuries of unparalleled progress in astronomy. Sky and Ocean Joined will appeal to historians of science, technology, scientific institutions and American science, as well as astronomers, meteorologists and physicists.

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Contents

III
1
IV
5
VI
12
VII
15
VIII
25
IX
27
X
28
XI
38
XXXIV
238
XXXV
239
XXXVI
293
XXXVII
295
XXXVIII
296
XXXIX
318
XL
337
XLI
347

XII
44
XIII
60
XIV
62
XV
70
XVI
98
XVII
118
XVIII
119
XIX
124
XX
133
XXI
140
XXII
141
XXIII
158
XXIV
161
XXV
163
XXVI
164
XXVII
173
XXVIII
181
XXIX
196
XXX
206
XXXII
218
XXXIII
232
XLII
358
XLIII
359
XLIV
392
XLV
414
XLVI
451
XLVII
453
XLVIII
478
XLIX
488
L
504
LI
505
LII
507
LIII
530
LIV
549
LV
561
LVI
567
LVII
572
LVIII
580
LIX
582
LX
584
LXI
586
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About the author (2003)

Steven J. Dick has worked as an astronomer and historian of science at the US Naval Observatory since 1979.

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