Between theory and observations. Tobias Mayer's explorations of lunar motion, 1751-1755 (Q1047559)

The book under review is devoted to Tobias Mayer (1723--1762), a German mathematician and astronomer and to his contribution to the lunar theory. It consists of 10 chapters and 3 appendices. After giving the background of the lunar theory and sketching the biography of Mayer the author explains (Chapter 4) how to work with Mayer's lunar tables. Mayer's lunar theory is examined in Chapter 5. It is also compared with theories of Euler and Clairaut. It is shown that the commonly held opinion that Mayer's theory was simply a modification of Euler's theory is wrong and that Clairaut's theory had an impact on Mayer's. Next the author attempts to explain the multistepped format of Mayer's tables by linking his theory to Newton's lunar theory of 1702. In the next chapters several aspects of applying the spreadsheets technique to the process of fitting of the coefficients (on which the quality of Mayer's tables depended) are discussed. The author considers also the problem of adjusting theory to observations and of model fitting. The last chapter provides a revised view of the development of Mayer's lunar tables and theory based on the results of the previous chapters as well as a summary of still open questions. The book gives a complete and accurate account of Mayer's important contributions to the study of lunar motion.