Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets

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Springer New York, 24. jan. 2007 - 248 síður
I was delighted to be invited by my colleagues Alessandra Celletti and Ettore Perozzi to provide a foreword to their book, Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets. Having known them for many years and long admired their work in the subject so many of us love and are fascinated by, 1 read with great attention and pleasure the text when it arrived. It is a formidable task they have set themselves, to provide a book that describes attempts by successive generations of astronomers from the dawn of history five millennia ago to observe, record and understand the phenomena of the heavens, particularly the intricate and perplexing behaviour of the planets. Sun and Moon. As naked eye astronomy became aided by the telescope and the photographic plate, and since the middle of the twentieth century, by instruments launched on spacecraft into circum- Earth orbit or to the Moon and planets and beyond, the discovery of new satellites, scores of them, and ring systems displaying new and initially perplexing behaviour also demanded explanations for that behaviour. It is also the inspiring story of science itself with special reference to how lonely individuals, impelled by curiosity and dedicated to seeking the truth, and nothing but the truth, about the fascinating phenomena of nature, ultimately became accepted as scientists, those players in the most successful endeavour ever engaged in by the human race.

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Um höfundinn (2007)

ALESSANDRA CELLETTI was born in 1962 (Rome, Italy). She obtained a master degree in Mathematics at the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 1984 and a Ph.D. at the Polytechnical Institute of Technology (ETH) in ZA1/4rich (Switzerland). Since 1999 she is Associate Professor at Dept. of Mathematics of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata." Her primary area of research concerns Mathematical Physics and Celestial Mechanics. She is the author of scientific papers published in high-level international journals and she has been involved in several international meetings and schools. She is president of the Italian Society of Celestial Mechanics and Astrodynamics.
SYLVIO FERRAZ-MELLO was born in 1936 (Sao Paulo, Brazil). He obtained a BSc in Physics in 1959 and a Dr. dAEtat in Paris in 1967. Then he became Professor at the University of Sao Paulo. He was former president of the Commission 7 (IAU).
His working subjects refer to the dynamics of natural and artificial satellites, variable stars, asteroid dynamics, extra-solar planetary systems and dynamical systems. He is the author of scientific papers published in high-level international journals and he has been involved in several international meetings and schools.

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