• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.195-198
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• 2012

The dual channel Pierce-Blitzstein photometer (PBPHOT) was productively used at the Flower and Cook Observatory to provide 60 years of study of binary systems and other cosmic objects. We review the history of this instrument, discuss its calibration, and recall some personal and professional interactions with Professor Robert H. Koch.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.737-739
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• 2015

To accommodate today's higher education student, fewer textbooks are printed and more are becoming digital. Keeping with the modern era, hybrid versions of textbooks have all end-of-chapter assessment content moved to digital learning systems such as MindTap$^{TM}$ by Cengage $Learning^{(R)}$. In this work, we introduce new pedagogical strategies to combat academic e-cheating, specifically cheating on assessments given in online astronomy courses. The strategies we present in this work are employed in Horizons: Exploring the Universe, Hybrid, 13th Edition, and Universe, Hybrid, 8th Edition, by Seeds, Backman, and Montgomery.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.125-138
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• 2020

We determine the observing sites for eclipses of large magnitude recorded in ancient Chinese chronicles from 200 BCE to 900 CE, by adopting the difference between terrestrial time and universal time, ΔT, given by Morrison & Stephenson (2004). The records of solar eclipses with large magnitude are divided into four groups in accordance with the historical variations of the capital cities of ancient Chinese dynasties. We determine areas in which all the eclipses in each group, with an eclipse magnitude larger than a certain threshold value, could be observed. We find that these areas coincide with the historical capitals, which agrees with the general idea that the solar eclipses were observed at the capital of each dynasty. This result also verifies the ΔT values during the period from 100 BCE to 400 CE, during which historical records of eclipses are so rare that the ΔT values can only be obtained by interpolating the long-term data. Moreover, we show that the eclipses described by the term Ji in East-Asian history are not all total eclipses; their mean magnitude is 0.96 ± 0.04. We find that complementary expressions, such as dark daytime and appearance of stars during the eclipse, strengthen the possibility that eclipses described by the term Ji were total. We also provide quantitative definitions for expressions such as 'being not complete and like a hook', 'being almost complete', 'visibility of stars during the eclipse', and 'darkness during an eclipse.' The literal meanings of these expressions are in agreement with the recent physical modeling of sky brightness during total eclipses provided by Können & Hinz (2008).

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.17-28
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• 2012

We present an analysis of the papers published in the journals Nature and Science in the years from 2006 to 2010. During this period, 7788 papers in total were published in the two journals. This includes 544 astronomy papers that correspond to 7.0% of the papers in 'all' research fields and 18.9% of those in the field of 'physical sciences'. The sub-fields of research of the astronomy papers are distributed, in a descending order of the number of papers, in Solar System, stellar astronomy, galaxies and the universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and exoplanets. The observational facilities used for the studies are mainly ground-based telescopes (31.1%), spacecrafts (27.0%), and space telescopes (22.8%), while 16.0% of papers did not use any noticeable facilities and 1.7% used other facilities. Korean scientists have published 86 papers (33 in Nature and 53 in Science), which is 1.10% of all the papers (N = 7788) in the two journals. The share of papers by Korean astronomers among the scientific papers by Koreans is 8.14%, slightly higher than the contribution of astronomy papers (7.0%) in both journals.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.25
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• pp.597-626
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• 2011

Civil college is a public educational institute for theoretical and practical learning. This study examines the social context behind France's civil college and how it is being operated. Many studies have been conducted in Korea to examine Germany in terms of lifelong learning or adult learning, but there is almost no study on France. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the history and operation of civil college, the "college outside college," in France and what Korea should learn from it. The civil college of France can be discussed in two contexts: first, it is AUPF, which stands for the French association of civil colleges, and it was mostly influenced by Northern Europe and Germany. Second, it is Caen Civil College, which was established by M. Onfray based his philosophical collaboration. The European civil college opened almost 1,000 courses in 2010-2011 for a variety of subjects, including Foreign Languages, Mother Tongue, the Dialects of Alsace, Philosophy, Cosmology, History, Art History, Psychology, Sociology, Astronomy, Botany, and Natural Science. Courses in Fine Arts include drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, music, and theater. For another form of civil college, Philosopher M. Onfray has been operating Caen Civil College since 2002 for general education and cultural education. It is not acknowledged by conventional philosophers, but it is contributing to the popularization of philosophy. In conclusion, the civil college in France has brought in-depth philosophical discussions out of the lecture rooms in an effort to popularize learning, making lifelong learning more accessible to the general public.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2023

Shoushili was the official calendrical method promulgated in 1280 CE by the Yuan dynasty. It contains a list of the angular spans in right ascensions for the 28 lunar lodges. They are known to have been measured by Guo Shoujing with his advanced instruments with an unprecedented precision or reading error of 5'. Such precise data are useful to determine their observational epoch with an error range which is narrow enough to pinpoint on which historical occasion they were observed. Using the precise SIMBAD data based on eDR3 of GAIA and carefully identified determinative stars and considering the precession of equinoxes and proper motions, we apply linear regression methods to those data and obtain the observational epoch of 1271 ± 16 CE and the measurement error of 4.1'. We also have polar distances corresponding to declinations written in another manuscript of the Ming dynasty. Since the two data sets have similar significant digits, they were suggested to have the same origin. However, we obtain their observational epoch of 1364±5 CE and the measurement error of 5.7'. They must have been measured with different instruments and on a different occasion from the observations related to Shoushili. We review the history of the calendrical reform during the 13th century in the Yuan dynasty. We conclude that the observational epoch obtained from lodge spans in Shoushili agrees with the period of observations led by Guo Shoujing or 1276-1279 CE, which is also supported by the fact that the ecliptic lodge span values listed in Shoushili were calculated from the equatorial lodge spans.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.233-238
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• 2016

The missing historical record of the Cassiopeia A (Cas A) supernova (SN) event implies a large extinction to the SN, possibly greater than the interstellar extinction to the current SN remnant. Here we investigate the possibility that the guest star that appeared near Cas A in 1592-1593 in Korean history books could have been an 'impostor' of the Cas A SN, i.e., a luminous transient that appeared to be a SN but did not destroy the progenitor star, with strong mass loss to have provided extra circumstellar extinction. We first review the Korean records and show that a spatial coincidence between the guest star and Cas A cannot be ruled out, as opposed to previous studies. Based on modern astrophysical findings on core-collapse SN, we argue that Cas A could have had an impostor and derive its anticipated properties. It turned out that the Cas A SN impostor must have been bright ($M_V=-14.7{\pm}2.2mag$) and an amount of dust with visual extinction of ${\geq}2.8{\pm}2.2mag$ should have formed in the ejected envelope and/or in a strong wind afterwards. The mass loss needs to have been spherically asymmetric in order to see the light echo from the SN event but not the one from the impostor event.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.49-57
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• 2022

In this study, we collected articles published in the Publication of the Korean Astronomical Society (PKAS) from 1984 to 2021, and performed quantitative analyses of their various aspects. PKAS is the journal where authors can publish research papers in Korean as well as English. It seems to have an advantage of the better accessibility to all people than other astronomy journals in English only. From 1984 to 2000, the number of articles published in PKAS has been steadily increased. From 2000, the number of published articles showed a tendency to decrease slightly every year. After 2010, the number of articles in PKAS has shown a sharp decline until now. Interestingly, in this period it is found that the topics published articles became various, in particular, many articles concerning historical astronomy began to be published. PKAS was selected as an accredited journal in 2018. This is a very positive situation, and we think the future direction of PKAS is encouraging. Considering these circumstances, the PKAS is suggested to reflect ideas of "interdisciplinary fusion" and "diversity" in publishing articles in the journal for its promising future.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.271-279
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• 2019

Pierre-Simon de Laplace(1749-1827) is considered one of the most influential scientists in history. He was known to his contemporaries as the Newton of France, and a scientific sage valued for his magisterial syntheses of scientific works through the 18th century. Laplace was a determined mathematician, astronomer, writer, philosopher, and educator. In this paper, we take a survey of his achievements in the areas of astronomy and mathematical statistics, along with his scientific philosophy, the universal determinism.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.99-110
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• 2022

This study presents the characteristics of publications in the Journal of Korean Astronomy Society (JKAS) from 1968 to 2021. JKAS has published 763 research articles over the past 54 years. In addition, 376 proceedings were also published with research articles. There were slight increases and decreases in the number of articles published in JKAS in the 1990s and 2000s, and in 2015 there was the highest recorded number of articles published for a given year. Since then, the number of articles has tended to decrease each year, up to and including the most recent period (2020-2021), which includes the Coronavirus pandemic. However, since theory centered research is primarily conducted without being swayed by society and policies, and that the proportion of authors belonging to educational institutions, such as universities, is high, the future direction of JKAS is encouraging. There are also positive developments including sustained researchers affiliated with international institutions at greater than approximately 23%, as well as improvements in the impact factor. Therefore, it is important to not be deterred by the decreasing trends of the quantitative aspect, but to respond positively by determining a future roadmap.