ASTRONOMY IN A WORLD AT WAR’ 
By A. VIBERT DovGLas 
Queen’s University 
Kingston, Ontario 
I 
Science has advanced during the last 4 years both because and 
in spite of war. Some of the sciences have made tremendous strides 
as a direct result of the challenge of war necessities. Physics, chem- 
istry, metallurgy, and all the branches of medical science are in this 
category; some day the full story of their great achievements may 
be made known. Other branches of knowledge, while far from being 
unaffected by the war, have continued to advance largely in spite 
of the upheavals in the life of nations and individuals which world 
war inevitably brings. Astronomy is in this latter class. 
Astronomy and astronomers are playing an important part in the 
war chiefly along the two lines which have always presented funda- 
mentally stellar problems—direction and time. But the main ad- 
vances in astronomy in these last 4 years have been made in spite 
of the war. It is right and fitting and indeed very encouraging that 
this is the case. When so much that is of intrinsic beauty and of 
fundamental value is being destroyed by war, and when so many 
worthwhile activities have to cease, it is good indeed to know that 
there are astronomers on this continent, and even in some parts of 
Europe, and in Australia, Africa, India, and probably in Japan, 
who are able to carry on the continuity of observations on stars and 
starlight, sun and moon, planets and asteroids, comets and meteors. 
If the continuity of observation in many branches of astronomical 
work were to be completely broken, it would be an irreparable loss 
to science. Thus it is with satisfaction and great admiration that 
we read in the Reports of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, that 
damage done by enemy action to one of the buildings and to 
the Airy transit circle has been largely made good, and observations 
recommenced with that instrument upon Sun, Venus, and the stars 
1 Address of the president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, January 1944. 
Reprinted by permission from The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 
vol. 38, No. 3, March 1944. 
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