Table of Contents

Introduction: The New Vision 400 Project. Creativity and Technology in Astronomical Discovery. Impact of Telescopes on Our Knowledge of the Universe. Some Near-Term Challenges in Astronomy. Technologies for Future Questions. Intellectual Impact of the Telescope on Society. "Big Questions" Raised by New Knowledge. Appendix: The New Vision 400 Conference. Index.

About the Author

To see video presentations from the New Vision 400 conference celebrating the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope, see the New Vision 400 web site. Donald G. York, Chief Editor, is Horace B. Horton Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at The University of Chicago. He was the founding director of the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico, and of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, one of the most ambitious collaborative projects ever undertaken by astronomers. He is also the founder and co-director of the Chicago Public Schools/University of Chicago Internet Project, a neighborhood schools technology initiative. Owen Gingerich, Co-Editor, is Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and of the History of Science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). He is co-author of two successive standard models for the solar atmosphere and is a leading authority on the 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler and the 16th-century cosmologist Nicolaus Copernicus. A world traveler, he has successfully observed 14 total solar eclipses. Shuang-Nan Zhang, Co-Editor, is Professor and Director of Key Laboratory of and Center for Particle Astrophysics in the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as Research Professor of Physics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is also the chief scientist of the Space Science Division of the National Astronomical Observatories of China and heads the X-ray Imaging Laboratory, which is leading several space x-ray astronomy missions in China, as well as the space astronomy program onboard China's Spacelab and Space Station.

Reviews

"... an excellent summary of the frontiers of astronomy and astrophysics, and will surely be required reading for graduate students. Especially good examples are the chapters on supernovae by Alexei Filippenko, and on dark energy by Mark Sullivan. Each chapter is characterized by its comprehensiveness and elegance of presentation. The final part of the volume explores the relationship between astronomy and society in general ... Readers will find this venture into metaphysics and ontology in this section both challenging and rewarding. Highly recommended." -D.E. Hogg, Emeritus, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, CHOICE, May 2012