<p>If you wanted to focus on one discovery that changed the world, I would suggest "Longitude" by Dava Sobel. It shows how something that could be dry - how navigators discovered what longitude was - is in fact a page-turning detective story. It was also made into a movie. </p>

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Longitude</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-08T08:48:14.083Z
2019-12-08T08:48:14.083Z
Snack_Food_Termite
<p>You could try <em>The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction</em> by Michael Hoskin. Or, for a more detailed but more expensive textbook, <em>The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy</em> edited by Michael Hoskin.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-26T11:10:16.380Z
2019-11-26T20:55:38.263Z
2019-11-26T20:55:38.263Z
gandalf61
<p>There are books that treat the general history of astronomy, such as those mentioned in the previous post.</p>

<ul>
<li><em>The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction</em> by Michael Hoskin. </li>
<li><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8172#download" rel="noreferrer"><em>History of Astronomy</em> by George Forbes</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Some books focus on discoveries from a certain period of history</p>

<ul>
<li><em>The Cosmic Century</em> 
by Malcolm S. Longair 
details discoveries that were made in the twentieth century. </li>
</ul>

<p>Other books retrace the "how we know it" of specific phenomena</p>

<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521800536" rel="noreferrer"><em>Flash</em> 
by Govert Schilling</a> 
traces the story of how we discovered what we know about gamma ray bursts.</p></li>
<li><p><em>Cosmic noise : a history of early radio astronomy</em>,
by Sullivan, Woodruff Turner III
focuses on what we learned from radio astronomy. </p></li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-22T19:04:09.970Z
For the rather recent, albeit incredibly interesting, history of "how it was done and figured out" for gravitational-wave astronomy, these two articles are nice! https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.09400 and https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.08803
Daddy Kropotkin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-29T16:45:51.700Z
2019-12-05T08:01:32.370Z
2019-12-05T08:01:32.370Z
usernumber
<p>I am reading my college/undergraduate level astronomy textbook. It has lots of ínfomation but every page raises a similar question in my mind: &quot;How do they know it?&quot;. It starts from simple things like radius of Earth, other planets, masses, composition, distances of stars, temperatures, luminosities etc. &quot;How do scientists know/determine these facts?&quot; is a question that pops up in my mind about every fact I have read. Do you have any book recommendations which mostly (if not exclusively) focuses on the question &quot;How do scientists know it?&quot;</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-26T07:53:13.963Z
A book on the history of astronomy, perhaps?
usernumber
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-26T09:20:13.783Z
I think this is often a blind spot of science communication. Most books (and most school curricula for that matter) are focused on "Here's a bunch of facts we know" and not "Here's how we figured that out". To be fair the 'how we figured it out' stuff is often a lot more dry than the bare facts, but it's still an important aspect to communicate.
Ingolifs
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-29T16:30:14.303Z
@Ingolifs I don't agree that it is necessarily more dry than bare facts. Much the contrary! Discoveries involve trial and error, and humans. Telling these stories of discovery can be just as interesting the discoveries themselves.
usernumber
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-09T22:43:35.367Z
The history of the sciences is typically at least so complex, as the sciences themselves. This is why they did not write it in the books you've read.
peterh
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-23T01:45:28.820Z
This seems to be **perfectly on-topic** as a resource-request-tagged question!
uhoh
<resource-request>
Any book on `How do they know it (in Astronomy)`?
claws
# Any book on `How do they know it (in Astronomy)`?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-11-26)

I am reading my college/undergraduate level astronomy textbook. It has lots of ínfomation but every page raises a similar question in my mind: "How do they know it?". It starts from simple things like radius of Earth, other planets, masses, composition, distances of stars, temperatures, luminosities etc. "How do scientists know/determine these facts?" is a question that pops up in my mind about every fact I have read. Do you have any book recommendations which mostly (if not exclusively) focuses on the question "How do scientists know it?"

**Tags:** resource-request
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: A book on the history of astronomy, perhaps?  
> **username_2**: I think this is often a blind spot of science communication. Most books (and most school curricula for that matter) are focused on "Here's a bunch of facts we know" and not "Here's how we figured that out". To be fair the 'how we figured it out' stuff is often a lot more dry than the bare facts, but it's still an important aspect to communicate.  
> **username_1**: @Ingolifs I don't agree that it is necessarily more dry than bare facts. Much the contrary! Discoveries involve trial and error, and humans. Telling these stories of discovery can be just as interesting the discoveries themselves.  
> **username_3**: The history of the sciences is typically at least so complex, as the sciences themselves. This is why they did not write it in the books you've read.  
> **username_4**: This seems to be **perfectly on-topic** as a resource-request-tagged question!  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2019-11-29. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

There are books that treat the general history of astronomy, such as those mentioned in the previous post.

* *The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction* by Michael Hoskin.
* [*History of Astronomy* by George Forbes](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8172#download)

Some books focus on discoveries from a certain period of history

* *The Cosmic Century*
  by Malcolm S. Longair
  details discoveries that were made in the twentieth century.

Other books retrace the "how we know it" of specific phenomena

* [*Flash*
  by Govert Schilling](http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521800536)
  traces the story of how we discovered what we know about gamma ray bursts.
* *Cosmic noise : a history of early radio astronomy*,
  by Sullivan, Woodruff Turner III
  focuses on what we learned from radio astronomy.

> **Comments:**
> **username_7**: For the rather recent, albeit incredibly interesting, history of "how it was done and figured out" for gravitational-wave astronomy, these two articles are nice! https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.09400 and https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.08803  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2019-12-08. Score: 4

If you wanted to focus on one discovery that changed the world, I would suggest "Longitude" by Dava Sobel. It shows how something that could be dry - how navigators discovered what longitude was - is in fact a page-turning detective story. It was also made into a movie.

[Longitude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book))


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2019-11-26. Score: 4

You could try *The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction* by Michael Hoskin. Or, for a more detailed but more expensive textbook, *The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy* edited by Michael Hoskin.


---

