USE OF ASTRONOMY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 713, 12 July 1929, Page 14

USE OF ASTRONOMY

PROFESSOR BURBIDGE LECTURE “What is the use of a ? tr °f°2Li was the question asked and aD ' at a meeting of the Auckland l mical Society last evening. - j professor of phy-sics at the A 1 University College, Professor ic . r Burbidge, M .Sc., 13. A., last e , j during the course of a lecture a the University Science BuildingsThe first great use of astfotiom. • fessor Burbidge said, was tne mination of time. The ol <* er or of time calculations by observatories, however, was being supplanted by broadcast _ from a large observatory. ° n ® D{ p main traditional uses of astr would thus vanish. ar ot-' The prediction of tides %vas -. 0 -_ use. As long as man survived h© i need a knowledge of the t^ae£ ' I the motions of the earth, sun were known to a nicety ..... i position that was very d t* vations would always be requir * , lecturer said. . . 1 Astronomy' had also paved tn ;i for navigation. Accurate a£trc \ tao ri knowledge existed among the the voyage of Kupe from New Zealand testified to that. man’s knowledge of this would not be here in Auck ' Captain Cook could not have J,r v t® taken his history-making joum* observe the transit of Venus. A paper on astronomical ep was read by Mr. J. P- Artha. r? < The society’s syllabus for t- p &! year includes lectures or P a Pf r ®» t - 2 .‘ : - i olio wing subjects:—‘‘Tides, - phere of Planets.” “Rival Tn * , « Cosmogeny,” “Astronomy .p 0 Bible,” “Astronomy at the &oUU» and “Earth Movements.”