CELESTIAL MECHANICS THE WALTZ OF THE PLANETS (PB 2007)

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.

From the reviews:

"Celletti (Universita di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’) and Perozzi (Telespazio Rome) present a complicated subject in an engaging manner that is accessible to general readers. The writing is clear and authoritative, and the diagrams and tables help the nonexpert reader to visualize the key ideas without having to wade through the mathematics usually found in a book on this subject. ... Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates." (T. Barker, CHOICE, Vol. 44 (11), August, 2007)

"The celestial mechanics can be considered as the mathematical part of the astronomy, requiring a high level in mathematics and reserved to specialists ... . The Waltz of the Planets offer a different insight, providing very basic mathematical tools to the reader, sufficient to enable him or her to understand the main topics of celestial planetary dynamics. The purpose is to present this discipline as accessible, interesting and amusing ... . A book to recommand to students, astronomers ... and celestial mechanicians." (Anne Lemaître, Physicalia Magazine, Vol. 30 (1), 2008)