Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography (Springer Praxis Books / Popular Astronomy)
by Nick Kanas
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nick KanasEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-24
ISBN: 0387716688
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Praxis
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780387716688
- Condition: New
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Book Reviews of Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography (Springer Praxis Books / Popular Astronomy)
Book Review: Book only good for its illustrations due to very poor scholarship
Summary: 1 Stars
I just got this book today and was eager to learn about the subject of star maps. The map images are the best feature of the book and the color images are very impressive. I believe that this book would have made a good coffee table book in which the emphasis was on the images, the larger size allowing a better appreciation of their features. In this format, historical references limited to the various maps would have sufficed.
The author decided instead to write a much more developed textbook complete with a self-contained historical approach to the subject. The problem is that this is a complete failure, the author seems to have failed to grasp the subtler elements of the history of astronomy, his account is superficial and does not even include basic concepts as found in Wikipedia. In general, the scholarship is poor, examples are given below. I am also disappointed with the publisher, Springer-Verlag, which specializes in scholarly publications including Otto Neugebauer's most important works, e.g., A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences) 3 volume set (v. 1).
I started realizing this when I read the author's explanation of conformal map: "meaning that the shape of any small area of the mapped surface is unchanged" as opposed to orthographic projection: "where the shape changes based on location" (pages 12-13). Of course, this is completely incorrect and completely misleading. In fact "conformal map" is very simply defined as "preserving angles." This is later explained in the book's glossary, page 373 under "Stereographic map projection," by stating that it means "free of angular deformation." This is not a very good definition since the meaning of the word "deformation" is unclear as it has no precise mathematical meaning in this context (there is a deformation theory in higher mathematics, [...], but probably not what the author intended). Moreover, the importance of conformal mapping is not explained, that is, that angles on the map projection correspond to the angles seen in the sky facilitating computations, and that this also makes the map easier to design. The rest of the book seems to confirm that the author does not understand the simple geometric properties of the map projections used in the star maps of his book. It seems non-trivial to find out from the text which projection is used in which star map. The index does not contain the word "projection" or anything relating to it, so the maps do not seem to be categorized in any way by projection. Perhaps this is an inherent difficulty, i.e., trying to discover the exact projection used by deduction from the map data, but even this does not seem to be mentioned in the text.
Also striking is that the author tries to give a summary of ancient astronomy but does not seem to be aware of some of the most easily available primary sources, or hasn't looked at them, and his research has left him with a only a superficial understanding of the subject. In particular, on page 56, he asks, in reference to Aristrachus of Samos: "Why wasn't the heliocentric model that included a moving, rotating Earth accepted?" and then attempts to answer the question with various hypotheses. Well, this question can be quite easily answered by using the most readily available original texts. In particular, by reading The Works of Archimedes one finds that in his paper "The Sand Reckoner," Archimedes did in fact accept the heliocentric model of Aristarchus (and that this paper is the main evidence to this lost paper of Aristarchus). Moreover, by reading the first few pages of Ptolemy's Almagest he would have discovered Ptolemy's explanation of why he discards any theory where the Earth is rotating or moving. As all historians of science agree, nothing can replace reading original sources. To his credit, the author does cite a reference stating that in mathematical astronomy, it is the practical nature of the model which is most important. However, with further reading, he would have gained deeper knowledge into the relative worth of the geocentric and heliocentric models which begins with the following observation: "The popular belief that Copernicus's heliocentric system constitutes a significant simplification of the Ptolemaic system is obviously wrong. The choice of the reference system has no effect whatever on the structure of the model, and the Copernican models themselves require about twice as many circles as the Ptolemaic models and are far less elegant and adaptable.'' Otto Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Indeed, the paradigm shift alluded to in sections 3.9 and 3.10 of the book is not so much about going from a geocentric model to a heliocentric model, as the text implies, but from mathematical astronomy, which is descriptive, to physical astronomy which is explicative, a good account of this most important Kepler contribution is given in the book Kepler's Physical Astronomy (Princeton Paperback). However, on page 102, the author implies that this innovation is secondary: "...he hit upon the idea of the ellipse as the best figure for the orbit of a planet (like Mars). Furthermore, he did not have to postulate eccentrics, epicycles, or equants, so long as the Sun was placed in one of the foci of the ellipse. Suddenly, the solar system became much simpler and more accurately reflected reality. This paradigm shift revolutionized astronomy. He also introduced a dynamic component, whereby he tried to explain planetary motion as being due to magnetic influences..." One also notes that the author has failed to understand that the equant is a first approximation to the ellipse, as the Sun (or equivalently, the Earth in the Earth/Sun model) is put at what is an approximation to the focus of an ellipse, and that this was the starting point for Kepler's theory, this going to show that Ptolemy's equant, later rejected by Copernicus, was a step in the final resolution of the two body problem by Kepler and Newton. One also wonders whether the author has even considered how Kepler's work simplified observational astronomy, in fact it left many difficulties, finding a planet requires solving Kepler's equation, an implicit differential equation whose approximate solution was developed by Lagrange in the 18th century and Bessel in the 19th century. All these points are now well-known to historians of science (even though, as Neugebauer states, they are not common knowledge outside of this community) and if the author is not aware of these subtleties, then he has no business writing up his own account of the subject.
The author's imprecise understanding of the history of astronomy is further illustrated by the following incongruous sentence on page 114: "As we learned in Section 3.3, Ptolemy's Almagest was translated into Arabic..." The point is that the word "Almagest" is the Arabic name for Ptolemy's work "The Mathematical Syntaxis" or "Mathematical Treatise," so it makes no sense to say that the Almagest was translated into Arabic.
I was a bit more surprised by the author's apparent lack of knowledge of star names. In particular, on page 114, the author states: "The Arabs introduced a number of names for stars which persist to this day." On the next page, he continues by citing a reference: "According to Allen, some examples of Arabic names that persist today include..." and goes on to list Achernar, Aldebaran, Altair, Fomalhaut, and Vega. I find this quite surprising since the briefest perusal of the names of the brightest stars makes it clear that a large proportion of current star names are derived from Arabic (Alnilam, Alnitak, etc.). I just did a verification of the 99 brightest stars (not including the Sun and measured by apparent magnitude) and found that at least 57 commonly used primary names are derived from Arabic (and at least 4 of the 10 brightest stars), and my impression was so strong that before I did this count, I conjectured that 80% of names were Arabic. That means that a majority of the 100 brightest stars have names of Arabic origin, i.e., Arabic is the major etymological source of our current nomenclature. It follows that weak statements such as "Arabs introduced a number of names..." are misleading and there is no need to base everything on a single reference (the "Allen" reference quoted above) as if this information were limited to one source (I found out the etymology by doing Internet searches to confirm obvious etymological conjectures). The conclusion here is somewhat alarming: One of the main reasons for having a star map is to become more familiar with the stars, but it appears that the author has limited awareness of the most famous stars, so his personal study of the book's subject matter has not been an unqualified success.
There are also lapses concerning constellations, which make up the central subject of this text. On page 111 are listed the 48 constellations given by Ptolemy as well as the current modifications. However, neither this table nor the text mentions that the stars of the current constellation Crux (the Southern Cross) was listed by Ptolemy as part of Centaurus. The scientifically interesting point is that Crux "detached" as a separate constellation due to the precession of the equinoxes which shifted its stars southward, so that this constellation was not visible from Europe and was "discovered" in the 16th Century by European sailors on their first voyages to the Southern hemisphere. On pages 118-119 of the book, the author mentions that Crux was considered part of Centaurus by the Ancient Greeks but first identified as a separate constellation in the 16th century, but without giving the scientific explanation for this. It appears that the interesting question of the effect of precession on star maps is not considered either so one wonders whether the author understands this phenomenon and its historical consequences. It also follows that the author has overlooked that his statement about Ancient Greek knowledge of the Crux stars would imply their inclusion in Ptolemy's star catalog.
I have nothing against "amateur" accounts of scholarly subjects as long as the material is accurate. However, this is absolutely not the case here, and this is more serious since the author is not an amateur, he is a university professor who has a professional obligation to publish accurate material even if it is not in his formal academic field. However, I believe that the book still remains valuable as a comprehensive collection of pictures of star maps where the historical information is limited only to the maps themselves.
I am afraid that this conclusion is quite harsh for a book in which the author has clearly expended so much effort and quoted so many sources. However, I believe that one judges a book on the history of science by its attention to detail. Neugebauer seems to agree: "In contrast to the usual lamentation, I believe that only the most intimate knowledge of details reveals some traces of the overwhelming richness of the process of intellectual life."
Otto E. Neugebauer, "Some Fundamental Concepts in Ancient Astronomy," in "Astronomy and History: Selected Essays,"
Springer--Verlag, New York 1983, page 5 (note once again the Springer publication).
Addendum, May 5, 2010.
After a further examination of the book, I have downgraded my evaluation to 1 star. The reason is that the author has bungled one of the most crucial points regarding sky maps. My final conclusion is that the book is useful only for its catalog of star map illustrations and perhaps as motivation for self-study in order to correct the large number of misconceptions and errors found in the text, the text below shows how I had to completely reconstruct the theory of star map orientation. To see how true scholarship is possible for a similar topic, see the excellent book A Dictionary of Modern Star Names: A Short Guide to 254 Star Names and Their Derivations.
The point of contention is the orientation of star maps. In short, this is whether stars and constellations faithfully represent what is actually seen in the sky from Earth, or whether they appear as a mirror image. Both conventions have been implemented in classical star maps and any understanding of star maps requires an understanding of exactly how and why this happens. In particular, this enables one to understand why in the current web version of Google Sky, everything in the star map (displayed using the "historical" button) is reversed including star and constellation names.
This is directly addressed in the book in Sections 1.4 and 1.5, p. 6--13. However, not one explanatory diagram is given for this subtle and potentially very confusing issue. The author is correct that an armillary sphere is the best way to understand the subtleties of this issue, but he only gives a single historical image of this instrument, insufficient to explain what is going on. The reason for orientation reversal is addressed in the text on page 11, but not in sufficient detail.
The very important point that orientation is reversed in the southern hemisphere is not even mentioned here (it is possible that it might be found elsewhere in the text). Moreover, the author mistakenly chooses to use the word "geocentric" to describe one star map orientation even though this term is used elsewhere in the book for an entirely different purpose, that is, to mean the opposite of "heliocentric," which, interestingly, in this context produces exactly the same map as a geocentric one, see below.
In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to give a self-contained explanation of the orientation question, I believe that the subtlety of this issue will become clear due to the lack of explanatory diagrams, making it even more evident that the author should have included some in his text, but I hope that, with careful reading, my explanation is sufficient to clarify the main issues.
The question of orientation comes down to whether the constellations of the Zodiac run in clockwise or counterclockwise orientation, where the direction is determined with respect to the order of the constellations as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, etc.. As is seen in the book's illustrations, both orientations can occur. Since the given order of the Zodiac constellations is based on the apparent yearly movement of the Sun in the sky, starting from Aries in March, the map orientation question reduces to understanding the orientation of this apparent motion of the Sun.
In order to do this, one first determines the orientation of the daily motion of the Sun in the sky by the following experiment: Stand and extend your arm first towards the East (sunrise), South (midday), West (sunset). You will see that your arm is moving clockwise. Surprisingly (I just figured this out this week), this is not what you see in the sky, since the Sun and the sky are above you. Imagine a tiny ant at your feet, then it sees your head as the North celestial pole while the Sun is in the direction of your arm, which, from the ant's point of view, is now rotating counterclockwise around your head (you can try this experiment with someone else standing and pointing, as you look up at them from the ground). So in fact, the Sun is rotating counterclockwise around the North celestial pole, as seen by a terrestrial observer. The same experiment is true for the stars which also move East, South, West, so the whole celestial sphere of fixed stars is rotating counterclockwise around the North celestial pole. (Note that the shadow of the Sun does turn clockwise, so sundials have a clockwise direction and this being the basis of modern clocks, this explains the current usage of the word "clockwise.")
Next, one recalls that the yearly motion of the Sun is to move backwards with respect to daily rotation of the celestial sphere, making one full rotation of the celestial sphere in one year. Since the celestial sphere appears to move counterclockwise, it follows that the Sun is moving clockwise around the celestial sphere (with respect to the North pole), so the Zodiac is oriented clockwise, as seen by a terrestrial observer.
It follows that a faithful star map reflecting actual terrestrial observation should have a clockwise orientation. However, that is not quite correct, as the orientation will be reversed in the southern hemisphere! To see this, use the same argument as above, except note that the Sun moves East, North, West. This vital point is not at all mentioned in the section on map orientation!
This shows that the Zodiac has different orientation depending on whether the map is taken from a northern or southern hemisphere perspective, but this is not at all the end of the story.
Historically, star maps were developed from celestial globes and their projections, and these maps are reversed because the point of view is external to the celestial globe, so the sky is seen in the reverse orientation from the internal viewpoint of a terrestrial observer. To understand this, return to the experiment of standing and pointing to the Sun: The Sun appeared to move clockwise because, in effect, the viewpoint of the observer is that he is the North celestial pole looking down on the Sun.
It follows that in a Northern hemisphere external projection, the Zodiac will be oriented counterclockwise. In particular, this is true for all astrolabes.
If the reader has been able to follow this description, then he is ready for the point of confusion introduced by the author: Instead of sticking to the internal/external dichotomy, he decides to call the internal representation "geocentric," presumably because it corresponds to terrestrial observation. However, this is completely misleading since the author also uses the term "geocentric" to mean the celestial model where everything rotates around the Earth, as opposed to "heliocentric" where everything turns around the Sun. In fact, with respect to map orientation, the heliocentric model gives exactly the same internal representation! This is due to the fact that constellations are almost identical as seen from the Sun. To understand why this is the case, note that in a 6 month period, the Earth will have moved from one side of the Sun to the other, so there is actually more displacement of the constellation in a 6 month period on Earth than there would be from the Earth to the Sun. Moreover, stellar parallax, the difference in position due to this 6 month difference in position is almost imperceptible, it was not observed until 1838 by Bessel, despite centuries of efforts by astronomers.
As a final comment, I should thank the author of this book for making me work through these concepts so that I now understand them a lot better.
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Summary of Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography (Springer Praxis Books / Popular Astronomy)
The beauty and awe generated by the celestial void captures our imagination and delights our aesthetic sense. Antiquarian map societies are prospering, and celestial maps are now viewed as a specialty of map collecting. This book traces the history of celestial cartography and relates this history to the changing ideas of man?s place in the universe and to advances in map-making. Photographs from actual antiquarian celestial atlases and prints, many previously unpublished, enrich the text. The book describes the development and relationships between different sky maps and atlases as well as demonstrating contemporary cosmological ideas, constellation representations, and cartographic advances.Astronomy Books
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