PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCIENCE 



or by reasoning based upon a knowledge of the 

 laws which govern the transformations and vary- 

 ing states of matter. Hence the problems of 

 Astronomy are to a very great extent problems 

 of mathematics, physics, or chemistry. The un- 

 ravelling of the apparently complex motions of 

 the heavenly bodies, and the determination of the 

 laws which govern their motions, are fields of 

 enquiry upon whose cultivation the mathematician 

 has, during many centuries, expended all the 

 resources of his art, and in which he has reaped 

 much signal success. It is no small achievement 

 to overleap the limitations which confinement to 

 this puny globe and the brevity of human life 

 impose, to measure distances which light itself 

 takes many years to traverse, to weigh the stars 

 against the sun, to determine the configurations 

 of planetary and stellar systems at distant past or 

 future epochs of time. 



And in passing it may be noted that if astrono- 

 mical knowledge has thus been advanced by the 

 aid of mathematics, on the other hand mathe- 

 matics as a pure science has also benefited by the 

 stimulus and direction to research which the 

 endeavours to solve the problems suggested by 

 Astronomy have supplied. 



Physics and chemistry, the sciences which are 

 concerned with the properties and constitution of 

 matter, hardly came into contact with Astronomy 



