Talk:Astrophysics
|
|
Overlap ?
There seems to be a lot of overlap in this field: there's Astronomy, History of astronomy, Observational astronomy (which has almost nothing in it), and Theoretical astrophysics.
In my head, astronomy is the generic word for any study of the heavens: historical, amateur or professional; while astrophysics is the scientific field of study. The OED calls astrophysics "That branch of astronomy which treats of the physical or chemical properties of the celestial bodies." So perhaps this page should primarily deal with the scientific discoveries and theories of the cosmos, and link to the astronomy and history of astronomy pages? --Screetchy cello 00:58, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I agree, there is too much overlap. Astronomy is the scientific study of objects in space, astrophysics is the study of the physical science of objects in space. Unless life is discovered in space, or the definition of science is expanded, all astronomical science is physical science, and so astronomy and astrophysics are the same thing. Indeed the terms are used interchangably. I think the two entries should be merged. Also I wonder whether history, observational and theoretical really need to be separate entries.
(There is vague notion that astrophysics is more rigorous or quantitative than astronomy; all this means in practice is if you're an astronomer and you're out to impress you call yourself an astrophysicist, whereas if you want to avoid freaking out people out you say you're an astronomer.) --Rkundalini 10:29, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I think the Astronomy wiki has it quite right: Observations are understood as the main work of 'Astronomers,' and the explanation of astronomical objects through theoretical work is what an 'Astrophysicist' does. So, let's concentrate on the physical concepts of Astronomy, here. Awolf002 23:37, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think Obervational Astonomy is a bit redundant; that's what astronomy is, the observation of the universe. And shouldn't Einstein's contibutions (i.e. Relativity) be included in the history?Trevor macinnis 23:04, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Astronomy literally means the laws of celestial objects, not just the observation of them. But ok I will buy the assertion that in common usage it has come to be associated with observational astronomy, while theoretical astronomy tends to be called astrophysics. Is this a big enough difference to justify two different pages, instead of sections within a single page? I would opt for the latter. Certainly the entries for individual objects should cover both observational and theoretical aspects (imagine having a page on say, star (observational) saying a star is a bright dot on the sky with such and such a spectral energy distribution, and another entry star (theoretical) saying a star is a self-gravitating object undergoing nuclear fusion or so... would be strange!). So it seems wierd to divide the field at the top level and not at the bottom level. But ok if people do want separate astronomy and astrophysics pages, can we at least do away with the observational section of the astrophysics entry? And if we do have separate entries, how do we better organise linking structure from each of these entries to objects on specific celestial phenomena/objects? Rkundalini 13:13, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
-- Astrophysics isn't just the theoretical side. Astrophysics is the scientific study of the cosmos, both theoretical and observational. Astronomy is more general; you could say, for example, the people who built Stonehenge did astronomy. So I think it's reasonable to have a distinction between astronomy, which is a word for *any* observation or study of the heavens, and astrophysics, which is science.
I envision this page as talking about current scientific theories in astrophysics (the theoretical side), and how scientists observe the cosmos (the observational side).
Some ideas for this page:
- Big Bang, obviously (this could discuss the cosmic microwave background and red shifting as evidence for why scientists believe this took place.)
- Stellar formation
- Large-scale structure - galaxies, etc
- Tools of the trade - visible observing, but also radio and infrared, and space-based telescopes. Spectroscopy.
Crikey, just in writing this, I'm realizing my astrophysics history is ruuuusty. I need to do some research. Screetchy cello 18:12, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)
That sounds like a pretty good solution to me. Rkundalini 07:47, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- When I created the page like three years ago I called it "Astronomy and astrophysics" for close to the reasons the Rkindalini cites: most of the work done in astronomy is astrophysics, with celestial mechanics esentially complete and astrometry still done, but not by so many people as once was done. Astrophysics is a 20th century creation, but has taken over most of astronomy. The name of the departments in universities in many places has to do more with history than with what they do, so the old departments are called "astronomy department", while the newer ones "astronomy and astrophysics", or some just "astrophysics". But, someone disagreed with me not so long ago and decided to rename the page to "astronomy", what made necessary to create this one. I didn't try to fight back, as most of the links one makes in other articles will be to "astronomy", not "astronomy and astrophysics". I disagree that "astronomy" is not science while "astrophysics" is. Of course astronomy is science!, otherwise we would have to include "astrology" with astronomy. It simply happens to be that astronomy is older than physics, and for a while it was not understood that all physics as studied on earth applies to the objects that astronomy studies. As late as late XIX century the was one philosopher (Comte, I think, but not sure) telling that astronomers would never know the chemical composition of the starts, and they had to limit themselves to observe positions and brightnesses (or something like that). So the realizing that you could, in fact, study the physics of objects revoluzionited astronomy, and expanded it. But that didn't "detach" astrophysics, as this new discipliene was called, from the rest of astronomy, it simply gave more depth to it. In short, yes, it is problematic to see what to put here. If there is not duplication with the astronomy page, there will be things missing. If there is duplication, well, there will be duplication. But, as I didn't create this mess (a relative term, as many won't think this is a mess at all), I won't try to solve it, and I exit the discussion having given my opinion...--AstroNomer 05:24, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)
What happened in the 18th century in astrophysics? -- Karada 14:18, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)