Introduction
In 1782, astronomer William Herschel set himself to examine a theory that the brightness of stars varied over time. There was no agreed classification for brightness, and no comprehensive record of observations, but it all had to do with a question that to Herschel was of the very first importance: whether the sun’s brightness also varies, and whether this has had any effect on earth’s climate.
THE conclusion which Herschel drew from these alterations, real or imagined, in the light of the stars was that they will “much lessen the confidence we have hitherto placed upon the permanency of the equal emission of light of our sun. Many phenomena in natural history seem to point out some past changes in our climates. Perhaps the easiest way of accounting for them may be to surmise that our sun has been formerly sometimes more and sometimes less bright than it is at present. At all events it will be highly presumptuous to lay any great stress upon the stability of the present order of things; and many hitherto unaccountable varieties that happen in our seasons, such as a general severity or mildness of uncommon winters or burning summers, may possibly meet with an easy solution in the real inequality of the sun’s rays.”
If our sun be a variable star diffusing heat in greater or less degrees at different times, or if it be a star growing old and burning out, the credit of the idea as well as of “lost” stars in the ocean of infinitude may justly be claimed, in our day at least, for this poetic and musical observer of the heavens.*
* On William Herschel as scientist and as composer, see The Music of the Spheres.
Précis
In 1782, astronomer William Herschel began studying the sun. He guessed that its brightness fluctuated, and he wanted not only to measure these changes with scientific accuracy but also to establish whether they were connected with periodic changes in earth’s climate, a project which he may well have been the first to undertake. (53 / 60 words)
In 1782, astronomer William Herschel began studying the sun. He guessed that its brightness fluctuated, and he wanted not only to measure these changes with scientific accuracy but also to establish whether they were connected with periodic changes in earth’s climate, a project which he may well have been the first to undertake.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, because, besides, despite, ought, unless, until, who.
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