Proceedings, Bad Honnef, Fed. Rep. of Germany 1987
Reproduced with kind permission from the author

Large Scale - Large Numbers - Large Efforts: Historical Annotations

W.C. Seitter

Astronomisches Institut
Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat
Munster, F.R. Germany

With the raptur'd Poet may we not justly say

O, what a Root! O what a Branch is here!
O what a Father! what a Family!
Worlds! Systems! and Creations!

and Consequence of this

In an Eternity, what Scenes shall strike?
Adventures thicken? Novelties surprize?
What Webs of wonder shall unravel there?

Night Thoughts

Edward Young (1745)
as quoted by Thomas Wright of Durham
in the 9th letter of his book
"An Original Theory of the Universe" 1750

ABSTRACT. The roots and branches, systems and creations, not so much of the Universe itself - as addressed in the quotation - but of our picture of the Universe, are briefly traced. It is intended to show small portions of the structure on which our present work is built, to provide a background onto which the data and discussions of the workshop can be projected.

Section 1 lists some major historical and contemporary large-scale surveys, in two and three dimensions, of galaxies and of clusters of galaxies. Section 2 introduces historical and modern definitions of various large-scale structures and illustrates the connections sought between the observations on the one side and mathematical and physical theory (statistics and evolution) on the other. Sections 3 and 4 are devoted to cosmological theory and, in particular, to the growth of concepts in relativistic cosmology, to the introduction of parameters and the difficult process of finding relations between theoretical and observational quantities. In Sections 5 and 6, we introduce the role of the data, the necessary corrections to be applied to direct measurements, and observational diagrams employed to make use of the data. Section 7, the conclusion, again voices the intent of these annotations.

Table of Contents