A History of Modern Planetary Physics: Nebulous Earth (Volume 1)

During the past 200 years, astronomers and geologists have developed and tested several different theories about the origin of the solar system and the nature of the Earth. Together, the three volumes that comprise A History of Modern Planetary Physics present a survey of these theories. Nebulous Earth follows the development of Laplace's Nebular Hypothesis, its connection with ideas about the interior of the Earth, and its role in the establishment of the "evolutionary" worldview that dominated science in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Brush also explores Saturn's rings, Poincaré's contributions to ideas about cosmic evolution, the use of seismology to probe the earth's core, and explanations of the Earth's magnetic field. This series will interest historians and philosophers of science as well as earth scientists and geologists.