Abstract
THE growth of our knowledge of stellar physics during the present century has been surprisingly rapid. It has arisen by combining the results of researches of most varied kinds. The older astronomy of position has afforded the data for the positions, distances, and motions of the stars, which were a preliminary to the establishment of the theory of giant and dwarf stars, and also to the detection of the possibility of finding parallaxes by the spectroscope, and so distinguishing the giants from the dwarfs. In another field, the discovery of radium, and radio-activity generally, has revolutionised ideas on the nature of the atom, and led to the detection of analogies between chemistry and dynamics. Prof. Eddington, whose lecture on “The Interior of a Star,” delivered at the Royal Institution on February 23, is printed as a supplement to the present issue, is one of the leading pioneers in this field. His earliest astronomical work was concerned with stellar distances and proper motions; but he has recently worked more on the physical side. Prof. Eddington was one of the first to point out the importance of light pressure in causing the distension of giant stars, and also to suggest that the immense duration of their output of energy is explicable by their drawing on the store of energy in the atom. This was first offered as a tentative explanation, but Prof. Eddington now makes it definitely. A remarkable confirmation of the correctness of the accepted views on stellar physics was afforded by the close agreement of the diameter of Betelgeuse, as given by the interferometer, with that deduced from the study of the distribution of energy in the spectrum, which led to a value of the temperature and surface brightness.
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Current Topics and Events. Nature 111, 644–646 (1923). https://doi.org/10.1038/111644a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/111644a0