Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of The Planets

The common perception of Celestial Mechanics is that of a discipline which needs advanced mathematics and astronomy to be understood. Yet modern Celestial Mechanics has a rather different taste and a truly interdisciplinary nature.

The common perception of Celestial Mechanics is that of a discipline which needs advanced mathematics and astronomy to be understood. Yet modern Celestial Mechanics has a rather different taste and a truly interdisciplinary nature.

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.

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.

The aim of this book is to demonstrate to a wider audience, as well as to a more skilled audience, the many fascinating aspects of modern celestial mechanics. It sets out to do this without the use of mathematics.