Between astrophysics and geophysics: the French contributions to the study of Auroras at the beginning of the 20th century
- Autores: Stéphane Le Gars
- Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 688-692
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Atmospheric researches were initiated in France during the 1860s by the physician and astronomer Jules Janssen, who created for instance the expression “telluric lines” to name the terrestrial part of the solar spectrum. This work was continued at the Meudon Observatory at the end of the 19th century, where Henri Deslandres inferred knowledge of atmospheric phenomena by means of mimetic experiments on cathode rays in vacuum tubes.
We will examine how these atmospheric researches were pursued at the beginning of the 20th century. First, we will detail the work of Charles Nordmann, who tried to make a link between auroras and radio waves emitted from the sun, and experimented at the top of the Mont Blanc to detect those waves. Afterwards, we’ll examine the way by which the “French school of molecular diffusion”, initiated by Jean Cabannes, a Charles Fabry’s student, paid attention to the auroras. In the end, we will focus on the researches of Alexandre Dauvillier in cosmic physics, and his participation in the French expedition of the Second International Polar Year (1932- 1933) at the Scoresby Sund, during which he ruined the hertzian and ultraviolet theories of auroras, and confirmed the spectroscopic results of Vegard.
In this way, we will point out the place auroras took in atmospheric lights researches in France (auroras, light of the night, sky, zodiacal light, …), the articulation between field observations and laboratory practices, the collaboration between French and Nordic physicists, and we will question the ways and meanings by which atmosphere was at all once an astrophysical and geophysical object.
