This textbook provides an introduction to the fundamentals of space physics and astrophysics and covers the recent progress in various aspects of these fields. In the introductory Chapter 1, a brief historical account of space research is given, followed by short reviews of the space vehicles used and some aspects of the early years of space research. In Chapter 2, the reader is introduced to the discoveries of the radiation belts and the magnetosphere of the Earth. Chapter 3 begins with the phenomena of the quiet Sun, followed by processes in the active Sun (solar flares, radio bursts and X-ray, gamma-ray and neutron emissions). In Chapters 4 and 5, attention is paid to the physical features and properties of large bodies and aggregates in the matter of the solar system, emphasising discoveries obtained from spacecraft. In Chapter 6 solar energetic particles are presented, bringing out their dual role - as a sample of accelerated matter from the Sun and as a sensitive probe of the interplanetary fields in the heliosphere. Chapter 7 presents a discussion on galactic cosmic rays, explaining the basic features and main findings. Highlights of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and possible origins are included. Chapter 8 presents exciting results of extreme UV, infra-red, X-rays and gamma-rays from space. These are followed by outlines of the new vistas of cosmological problems as revealed by the cosmic background measurements of X-rays, gamma-rays and microwaves. In Chapter 9, the reader is introduced to the physical and dynamical properties of the interstellar medium. This chapter concludes with the astrophysical aspects of the search for the origin of life. In the concluding Chapter 10 some general trends and future directions are briefly presented. The level of presentation is aimed at senior undergraduate students who are familiar with introductory physics. Graduate students will find more advanced topics discussed through their underlying features. Each chapter is followed by a number of problems; solving these will enable students to obtain a good grasp of the topics.

From August 21 through August 27, 1989 the Nato Advanced Research Workshop Probabilistic Methods in Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Gravity" was held at l'Institut d'Etudes Scientifiques, Cargese, France. This publication is the Proceedings of this workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together a group of scientists who have been at the forefront of the development of probabilistic methods in Quantum Field Theory and Quantum Gravity. The original thought was to put emphasis on the introduction of stochastic processes in the understanding of Euclidean Quantum Field Theory, with also some discussion of recent progress in the field of stochastic numerical methods. During the final preparation of the meeting we broadened the scope to include all those Euclidean Quantum Field Theory descriptions that make direct reference to concepts from probability theory and statistical mechanics. Several of the main contributions centered around a more rigorous discussion of stochastic processes for the formulation of Euclidean Quantum Field Theory. These rather stringent mathematical approaches were contrasted with the more heuristic stochastic quantization scheme developed in 1981 by Parisi and Wu: Stochastic quan tization, its intrinsic BRST -structure and stochastic regularization appeared in many disguises and in connection with several different problems throughout the workshop.

Celestial fundamental catalogues are a prerequisite for the determination of absolute positions and motions in space. Presently, positional astrometry is at the watershed between classical fundamental catalogues, based on moving reference stars, and modern catalogues, based on extragalactic reference objects with non-measurable motion. This book addresses the concepts and methods of the respective construction techniques leading to the stellar frame of the FK5 (fifth fundamental catalogue) and to the newly adopted extragalactic radio reference frame, ICRF (international celestial reference frame), with its extension to optical wavelengths by the Hipparcos Catalogue. While principal outlines of meridian circle observations are given, emphasis is put in some detail on the VLBI technique as applied to astrometry, and to the observational techniques used in the Hipparcos mission, including the tie of the originally non-anchored rigid Hipparcos sphere into the ICRF.

The ability of storing, managing, and giving access to the huge quantity of data collected by astronomical observatories is one of the major challenges of modern astronomy. At the same time, the growing complexity of data systems implies a change of concepts: the scientist has to manipulate data as well as information. Recent developments of the WorldWideWeb' bring interesting answers to these problems. The book presents a wide selection of databases, archives, data centers, and information systems. Clear and up-to-date descriptions are included, together with their scientific context and motivations. Audience: This volume provides an essential tool for astronomers, librarians, data specialists and computer engineers.

A major fraction of star formation in the universe occurs in starbursts. These regions of particularly rapid star formation are often located towards the centers of host galaxies. Studies of this kind of star formation at high redshift have produced astonishing results over recent years that were only possible with the latest generation of large ground-based and space telescopes. The papers collected in this volume present these results in the context of the much firmer foundation of star formation in the local universe, and they emphasize all the important topics, from star formation in different environments to the cosmic star formation history.

This book includes the proceedings of the Workshop held in Madrid, April 1999 to celebrate 2 years of successful operation of the first Spanish small scientific satellite in orbit. It contains discussions about the overall philosophy of small mission programs, the design of the satellite and its payload as well as the most relevant scientific outcome of the mission. Also included are additional contributions to the workshop, which are of importance to Minisat 01 in order to put its results within context. Finally, the future of small missions for space sciences is reviewed together with the main technological challenges for new studies. Out of the technological and scientific results of Minisat 01, the measurement of the EUV airglow spectrum and the flux of some stars in the same range can be highlighted together with the dismiss of the massive neutrino decay theory. The high-energy experiment analyzed the characterization of the radiation environment in LEO and the behaviour of different kind of detectors, as well as the use of coded masks for imaging and the measurement of some specific sources. The book's level is intended for specialists in EUV and Hard X-Ray astrophysicists as well as for engineers and technicians involved in space science experiments and missions.

Quantum gravity has developed into a fast-growing subject in physics and it is expected that probing the high-energy and high-curvature regimes of gravitating systems will shed some light on how to eventually achieve an ultraviolet complete quantum theory of gravity. Such a theory would provide the much needed information about fundamental problems of classical gravity, such as the initial big-bang singularity, the cosmological constant problem, Planck scale physics and the early-time inflationary evolution of our Universe. While in the first part of this book concepts of quantum gravity are introduced and approached from different angles, the second part discusses these theories in connection with cosmological models and observations, thereby exploring which types of signatures of modern and mathematically rigorous frameworks can be detected by experiments. The third and final part briefly reviews the observational status of dark matter and dark energy, and introduces alternative cosmological models. Edited and authored by leading researchers in the field and cast into the form of a multi-author textbook at postgraduate level, this volume will be of benefit to all postgraduate students and newcomers from neighboring disciplines wishing to find a comprehensive guide for their future research.

Clusters and superclusters of galaxies are the largest objects in the Universe. They have been the subject of intense observational studies at a variety of wavelengths, from radio to X-ray which has provoked much theoretical debate and advanced our understanding of the recent evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe. The current status of the subject is reviewed in this volume by active researchers who lectured at a NATO Advanced Study Institute held in Cambridge, England in July 1991. Much of the material is presented in a pedagogical manner and will appeal to scientists, astronomers and graduate students interested in extragalactic astronomy.

This volume consists of invited lectures and seminars presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute "The Infrared and Submillimetre Sky after COBE", which was held at the Centre de Physique Theorique of Les Houches (France) in March 1991. The school has been planned by a Scientific Organizing Committee. It was organized with the aim of providing students and young researchers with an up-to-date account of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the Cosmic Infrared Background (if any), and the infrared emission of the Galaxy, after the early results from COBE (Cosmic Background Explo- rer). It was attended by about sixty researchers from many countries. The lectures and seminars represent a complete coverage of our present knowledge and understanding of: the Early Universe, Large-Scale Structure, Dust in Galaxies, Infrared to Submillimetre Backgrounds, CMB Anisotropies, complementary observations and instrumentation problems, etc. Most of these lectures are reproduced in this volume. Unfortunately, a few lecturers have chosen not to submit their manuscript. I would like to express my gratitude to the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and to the Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics Sections of the CNRS (Centre National de la Re- cherche Scientifique) for their generous support. Further help was obtain- ed from the DRET (Direction des Recherches, Etudes et Techniques), the CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) and the IN2P3 (Institut Natio- nal de Physique Nuc1eaire et de Physique des Particules), which I hereby gratefully acknowledge.

We are well aware of how dust influences our observations of distant stars and how easily dust may mislead us with regard to the way in which stars are distributed within the Galaxy, but how does dust affect our view of other galaxies? This is the question that was posed to those who attended this meeting. By its very nature dust is illusive: as dust obscures by both scattering and absorption, it can effectively disguise its very own existence. It was not until the mid-1930's that astronomers generally agreed that dust did redden and dim stars in our own Galaxy, and it was not until the late 1950's that astronomers began to seriously inquire of its effects in other galaxies To the best of our knowledge, this is the first international meeting to have been held devoted solely towards understanding the observational effects of dust in other galaxies. Because of this we have been fortunate in attracting many of the major workers in this field, both observers and theorists. Among these pages the reader will find a wide range of opinion about how much dust there is in the disks of galaxies, where that dust is, and how to model the effects of dust. We tried to structure this meeting so that there was a ready and easy exchange between the speaker and the audience, and so that there was a large amount of time for discussion.

In this book are reported the main results presented at the "Fourth International Workshop on Data Analysis in Astronomy," held at the Ettore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture, Erice, Sicily, Italy, on April 12-19, 1991. The Workshop was preceded by three workshops on the same subject held in Erice in 1984, 1986 and 1988. The frrst workshop (Erice 1984) was dominated by presentations of "Systems for Data Analysis"; the main systems proposed were MIDAS, AlPS, RIAIP, and SAIA. Methodologies and image analysis topics were also presented with the emphasis on cluster analysis, multivariate analysis, bootstrap methods, time analysis, periodicity, 2D photometry, spectrometry, and data compression. A general presentation on "Parallel Processing" was made which encompassed new architectures, data structures and languages. The second workshop (Erice 1986) reviewed the "Data Handling Systems" planned for large major satellites and ground experiments (VLA, HST, ROSAT, COMPASS-COMPTEL). Data analysis methods applied to physical interpretation were mainly considered (cluster photometry, astronomical optical data compression, cluster analysis for pulsar light curves, coded aperture imaging). New parallel and vectorial machines were presented (cellular machines, PAPIA-machine, MPP-machine, vector computers in astronomy). Contributions in the field of artificial intelligence and planned applications to astronomy were also considered (expert systems, artificial intelligence in computer vision).

InMay1988,theFirstInternationalConferenceonDissociativeRecombination:Theory, ExperimentandApplicationswasheldatChateauLakeLouise,Alberta,Canada. Thismeeting gaveaconsiderableimpetustothissubject,whichisofparticularinterestforalargevarietyof fieldsincludinginterstellarclouds,planetaryatmospheres,gaslasers,plasmaprocessing,ion sourcesandthermonuclearplasmas. Sincethen,indeed,severalcollaborationswereinitiated betweenexperimentalistsworkingwithdifferenttechniques,betweentheoreticiansdealingwith molecularstructureononehandanddynamicsontheotherhandandalsobetween experimentalistsandtheoreticians. Duringthelastfouryears,therefore,alargenumberof studieswerecarriedoutandraisedanewsetofquestions. Moreparticularly,theresultsthat wereobtainedconcerningcontroversialspeciessuchasH!andHeir,castingsomedoubton theverymechanismsbywhichdissociativerecombinationproceeds. The Second International Conference on Dissociative Recombination: Theory, ExperimentandApplications heldat"I'AbbayedeSaintJacutdelaMer",Brittany,France, May3-8,1992,camethereforeattherighttimetosurveythecurrentstateofthesubject. The symposiumbroughttogetherleadinginvestigatorsinthefieldsofmolecularionrecombination research,atomicandmoleculartheoryandexperiment,plasmasphysics,astrochemistryand aeronomy. Speakerspresentedtalksreviewingtheirownworkandthesewerefollowedby livelydiscussionsessions. Freetimeperiodsallowedparticipantstodiscoveranenchanting peninsulaofNorthBrittanywhilepursuingstimulatingscientificdiscussions. Thepapersinthis volumearebasedonthesetalksandfurtherdiscussions,withtheexceptionofcontributions fromT. AmanoandB. M. McLaughlinwhowereunabletoattend. Alistofparticipantsas wellasasouvenirgroupphotoisgivenattheendofthebook. WeareindebtedtoNATOforitsfinancialsupportwhichcontributedtothegreat successofthissecondmeeting. TheUniversityofRennesIandtheBalzerscompanyarealso acknowledgedfortheiradditionalsupportManythankstothewholestaffoftheabbeyforits kindnessandeffortsinprovidinguswithapropitiousenvironmentforsuchaworkshop. We arealsogratefultoL. Caubetforhervaluableadministrativeassistanceduringthepreparation ofthemeeting. Finallyaspecialmentionmustbegiventoallthesessionchairpersonsfortheir skillinorchestratingthediscussions. Lookingforwardtoattendingthethirdmeeting. TheEditors Bertrand R. Rowe J. Bria/l A. Mitchell Andre Callosa DepartementdePhysique DepartmentofPhysics DepartementdePhysique AtomiqueetMoleculaire TheUniversityofWesternOntario AtomiqueetMoleculaire UniversitedeRennesI London,Canada,N6A3K7 UniversitedeRennesI CampusdeBeaulieu CampusdeBeaulieu 35042RennesCedex, 35042RennesCedex, France France v CONTENTS ORALCONTRIBUTIONS PolyatomicIonDissociativeRecombination . 1 D. R. Bates RecentDevelopmentsandPerspectivesintheTreatmentofDissociative RecombinationandRelatedProcesses...11 A. Giusti-Suzor, I. F Schneider, and 0. Dulieu CharacteristicsofSuperexcitedStatesofMoleculesandMQDTStudiesofNO+ DissociativeRecombination...25 H. Sun, K. Nakashima, and H. Nakamura CalculationsforAr +Xe*andArXe+ +e 35 A. P. Hickman, DL Huestis, and R. P. Saxon Electron-IonContinuum-ContinuumMixinginDissociativeRecombination 47 s. L. Guberman ATheoreticalStudyoftheHCO+andHCS+ElectronicDissociativeRecombinations. . 59 D. Talbi, and Y Ellinger DissociativeRecombinationofCH;:SomeBasicInformationfromElectronic 2 StructureCalculations. 67 WP. Kraemer TheoreticalProblemsintheDissociativeRecombinationofH~ +e...75 H. Takagi RecentMergedBeamsInvestigationsofHydrogenMolecularIonRecombination...87 J B. A. Mitchell, F B. Yousif, P. Van der Donk, and T. J Morgan vii FlowingAfterglowStudiesofElectron-IonRecombinationusingLangmuirProbesand OpticalSpectroscopy...99 NG. Adams RecentFlowingAfterglowMeasurements . 113 B. R. Rowe InfraredSpectroscopicStudiesoftheDissociativeRecombinationProcessesofH...127 3 T. Amano RecombinationofClusterIons . 135 R. Johnsen PredissociationofExcitedStatesofH . . 145 3 H. Helm AStudyofHe e,3I,;)BoundandContinuumStates...155 2 CJ Gillan, B. M McLaughlin. and P. G. Burke ElectronCollisionInducedExcitationsandDissociationofHeH+usingthe R-MatrixMethod . . 163 BK Sarpal, J Tennyson, and L. A. Morgan AssociativeIonisationofHydrogen:ExperimentswithFastMergedBeams...173 F Brouillard, andX Urbain TheoryoftheAsssociativeIonisationReactionbetweenTwoLaser-Excited . 187 SodiumAtoms 0. Du!ieu, A. Giusti-Suzor, andF Masnou-Seeuws ResonantTheoryofDissociativeAttachment...195 J. J. Fabrikant MicroscopicandMacroscopicTheoriesofTermolecularRecombinationbetween AtomicIons...205 MR. Flannery DissociativeRecombinationinPlanetaryIonospheres . . 219 JL. Fox ChemistryofSupernova1987a . 243 A. Dalgarno DissociativeRecombinationinInterstellarClouds . .

The ubiquity ofjet phenomena in young stellar objects, active galactic nuclei, sym- biotic stars, planetary nebulae and x-ray binaries has driven a broad literature on the astrophysics of collimated mass ejection. One of the fundamental open problems in star formation is the understanding of the physical mechanisms by which mass is ejected from the protostellar system and collimated into jets. Locally jets will regulate the system angular momentum and therefore its evolution during the first few million years. At large scale jets inject momentum into the cloud thus affecting its star formation efficiency and evolution. Many recent advances in the star formation field in both theoretical and observa- tional aspects together with the increasing availability of computational resources, conveyed for a perfect opportunity to organise this workshop which we entitled - Jets 2002: Theory and Observations in YSOs. The workshop main aim was to provide a rich and varied ground for discussion of thejet phenomenon in different astrophysical objects, covering interdisciplinary areas such as steady state winds, time-dependent winds/jets,jet energetics and jet/wind propagation. The workshop took place at the Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto from 3-5 September 2002 and was part of the Joint European National Astronomical Meeting 2002 organized by Sociedade Portuguesa de Astronomia.

An up-to-date presentation of the progress and current problems in the early universe, cosmic microwave background radiation, large scale structure formation, and the interplay between them. The emphasis is on the mutual impact of fundamental physics and cosmology, both at theoretical and experimental (observational) levels within a deep, well- focused and well-defined programme. The nature of the domain itself leads to different aspects, approaches and points of view on the same topic. Special care has been taken to provide the reader the basis of the different, sometimes competing lines of research. All contributions are uniformly excellent, with a careful selection of the subjects and approaches covered, presenting a unifying and rigorous view of the field. Audience: experimentalists and theoreticians from a variety of backgrounds: physics, astrophysics and astronomy. An excellent reference for post-doctoral scientists. Useful for senior scientists and advanced graduate students.

Telescopes and Techniques has proved itself in its first edition, having become probably one of the most widely used astronomy texts, both for numerate amateur astronomers and for astronomy and astrophysics undergraduates. The first and second editions of the book were widely used as set texts for introductory practical astronomy courses in many universities.
This book guides the reader through the mathematics, physics and practical techniques needed to use telescopes (from small amateur models to the larger instruments installed in many colleges) and to observe objects in the sky. Mathematics to around Advanced Placement standard (US) or A level (UK) is assumed, although High School Diploma (US) or GCSE-level (UK) mathematics plus some basic trigonometry will suffice most of the time. Most of the physics and engineering involved is described fully and requires no prior knowledge or experience.
This is a how to book that provides the knowledge and background required to understand how and why telescopes work. Equipped with the techniques discussed in this book, the observer will be able to operate with confidence his or her telescope and to optimize its performance for a particular purpose. In principle the observer could calculate his or her own predictions of planetary positions (ephemerides), but more realistically the observer will be able to understand the published data lists properly instead of just treating them as recipes. When the observer has obtained measurements, he/she will be able to analyze them in a scientific manner and to understand the significance and meaning of the results.
Telescopes and Techniques, 3rd Edition fills a niche at the start of an undergraduate astronomer s university studies, as shown by it having been widely adopted as a set textbook. This third edition is now needed to update its material with the many new observing developments and study areas that have come into prominence since it was published. The book concentrates on the knowledge needed to understand how small(ish) optical telescopes function, their main designs and how to set them up, plus introducing the reader to the many ways in which objects in the sky change their positions and how they may be observed. Both visual and electronic imaging techniques are covered, together with an introduction to how data (measurements) should be processed and analyzed. A simple introduction to radio telescopes is also included. Brief coverage of the most advanced topics of photometry and spectroscopy are included, but mainly to enable the reader to see some of the developments possible from the basic observing techniques covered in the main parts of the book."

Otto von Guericke has been called a neglected genius, overlooked by most modern scholars, scientists, and laymen. He wrote his Experimenta Nova in the seventeenth century in Latin, a dead language for the most part inaccessible to contemporary scientists. Thus isolated by the remoteness of his time and his means of communication, von Guericke has for many years been denied the recognition he deserves in the English speaking world. Indeed, the century in which he lived witnessed the invention of six important and valuable scientific instruments -- the microscope, the telescope, the pendulum clock, the barometer, the thermometer, and the air pump. Von Guericke was associated with the development of the last three of these; he also experimented with a rudimentary electric machine. Thus his Experimenta Nova was an important work, heralding the emerging empiricism of seventeenth century science, and merits this first English translation of von Guericke's magnus opus.

Research of the interstellar medium (ISM) has been advancing rapidly during the last 10 years, mainly due to immensely improved observational facilities and techniques in all wavelength ranges. We are now able to investigate the ISM in external galaxies and even the intergalactic and intracluster medium in great detail. Increased spatial and spectral resolution have provided us with a great deal of information on the interstellar gas in its various phases, the magnetic field and the cosmic rays, and of course, also the stellar component, which is the driving agent of the interstellar matter cycle.
Since only fairly recently, a sufficient amount of computing power has become available to tackle these problems with some prospect of obtaining a self-consistent picture of the ISM, a major goal of this workshop was to bring together observers and theoreticians sufficiently close, so that intense discussions about the necessities and desiderata of modelling the ISM could be stimulated. Observers have shown in great detail on this conference of what is seen on all scales of the ISM, near and far, and what boundary conditions would be appropriate for realistic models, and theoreticians pointed out what assumptions and simplifications their codes need, and how future observations could test their models. As a first step towards this goal, some self-consistent numerical simulations with a minimum number of relevant physical processes were also presented on this meeting. There was wide agreement, that this approach - to keep observers and theoreticians in close contact and also in sometimes quite controversial discussions - will bear fruitful results in the near future.

In Controversy, Trevor Palmer fully documents how traditional gradualistic views of biological and geographic evolution are giving way to a catastrophism that credits cataclysmic events, such as meteorite impacts, for the rapid bursts and abrupt transitions observed in the fossil record. According to the catastrophists, new species do not evolve gradually; they proliferate following sudden mass extinctions. Placing this major change of perspective within the context of a range of ancient debates, Palmer discusses such topics as the history of the solar system, present-day extraterrestrial threats to earth, hominid evolution, and the fossil record.

Accretion disks in astrophysics represent the characteristic flow by which compact bodies accrete mass from their environment. Their intrinsically high luminosity, and recent progress in observational accessibility at all wavelength bands, have led to rapidly growing awareness of their importance and made them the object of intense research on widely different scales, ranging from binary stars to young stellar objects and active galactic nuclei. This book contains the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Workshop on `Theory of Accretion Disks 2' for which some of the most active researchers in the different fields came together at the Max-Planck-Institut for Astrophysics in Garching in March, 1993. Its reviews and contributions give an up-to-date account of the present status of our understanding and provide a stimulating challenge in discussions of open questions in a rapidly developing field.

ROSAT Observations G. HASINGER Max-Planck-Institut flir extraterrestrische Physik, D-85740 Garching, Germany Abstract. This review describes the most recent advances in the study of the extragalactic soft X-ray background and what we can learn about its constituents. The deepest pointed observations with the ROSAT PSPC are discussed. The logN-logS relation is presented, which reaches to the faintest X-ray fluxes and to the highest AGN surface densities ever achieved. The N(>S) relation shows a 2 density in excess of 400 deg- at the faintest fluxes and a flattening below the Einstein Deep Survey limit. About 60% of the extragalactic background has been resolved in the deepest field. Detailed source spectra and first optical and radio identifications will be discussed. The results are put into perspective of the higher energy X -ray background. Key words: X-rays, background radiations, active galactic nuclei. 1. Introduction The extragalactic X-ray background (XRB), discovered about 30 years ago, has been studied extensively with many X-ray experiments, in particular with the satel lites HEAO I and II (see ego Boldt 1987) and with ROSAT (e. g. Hasinger et aI. , 1993). Figure 1 shows a compilation of some of the most recent spectral measure ments for the X-ray background. Over the energy range from 3 to about 100 keY its spectrum can be well approximated by an optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung model with kT ~ 40 keY, while at lower X-ray energies a steepening into a new component has been observed observed (e. g.

This volume contains the lectures and contributions presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on "Frontier Topics in Nuclear Physics", held at Predeal in Romania from 24 August to 4 September 1993. The ASI stands in a row of 23 Predeal Summer Schools organized by the Institute of Atomic Physics (Bucharest) in Predeal or Poiana-Brasov during the last 25 years. The main topics of the ASI were cluster radioactivity, fission and fusion. the production of very heavy elements, nuclear structure described with microscopic and collective models, weak: interaction and double beta decay, nuclear astrophysics, and heavy ion reactions from low to ultrarelativistic energies. The content of this book is ordered according to these topics. The ASI started with a lecture by Professor Greiner on the "Present and future of nuclear physics", showing the most important new directions of research and the interdisciplinary relations of nuclear physics with other fields of physics. This lecture is printed in the first chapter of the book.

The Olympia conference Frontiers of Fundamental Physics was a gathering of about hundred scientists who carryon their research in conceptually important areas of physical science (they do "fundamental physics"). Most of them were physicists, but also historians and philosophers of science were well represented. An important fraction of the participants could be considered "heretical" because they disagreed with the validity of one or several fundamental assumptions of modern physics. Common to all participants was an excellent scientific level coupled with a remarkable intellectual honesty: we are proud to present to the readers this certainly unique book. Alternative ways of considering fundamental matters should of course be vitally important for the progress of science, unless one wanted to admit that physics at the end of the XXth century has already obtained the final truth, a very unlikely possibility even if one accepted the doubtful idea of the existence of a "final" truth. The merits of the Olympia conference should therefore not be judged a priori in a positive or in a negative way depending on one's refusal or acceptance, respectively, but considered after reading the actual of basic principles of contemporary science, new proposals and evidences there presented. They seem very important to us.

This state-of-the-art survey serves as a complete overview of the subject. Besides the principles and theoretical foundations, emphasis is laid on practical applicability -- describing not only classical methods, but also modern developments and their applications. Students, researchers and practitioners, especially in the fields of data registration, treatment and evaluation, will find this a wealth of information.

This book, which has been in the making for some eighteen years, would never have begun were it not for Dr. David Dewhirst in 1976 kindly having shown the author a packet of papers in the archives of the Cambridge Obser vatories. These letters and miscellaneous papers of Fearon Fallows sparked an interest in the history of the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope which, after the diversion of producing several books on later phases of the Observatory, has finally resulted in a detailed study of the origin and first years of the Observatory's life. Publication of this book coincides with the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Observatory, e.G.H. Observatories are built for the use of astronomers. They are built through astronomers, architects, engineers and contractors acting in concert (if not always in harmony). They are constructed, with whatever techniques and skills are available, from bricks, stones and mortar; but their construction may take a toll of personal relationships, patience, and flesh and blood.