Preface

Lecture I: Copernicus and the Motion of the Earth

Lecture II: Tycho Brahe and the Earliest Observatory

Lecture III: Kepler and the Laws of Planetary Motion

Lecture IV: Galileo and the Invention of the Telescope

Lecture V: Galileo and the Inquisition

Lecture VI: Descartes and his Theory of Vortices

Lecture VII: Sir Isaac Newton

Lecture VIII: Newton and the Law of Gravitation

Lecture IX: Newton's "Principia"

Lecture X: Roemer and Bradley and the Velocity of Light

Lecture XI: Lagrange and Laplace - The Stability of the Solar System, and the Nebular Hypothesis

Lecture XII: Herschel and the Motion of the Fixed Stars

Lecture XIII: The Discovery of the Asteriods

Lecture XIV: Bessel - The Distance of the Stars, and the Discovery of Stellar Planets

Lecture XV: The Discovery of Neptune

Lecture XVI: Comets and Meteors

Lecture XVII: The Tides

Lecture XVIII: The Tides, and Planetary Evolution