TY - BOOK AU - Bertolotti,Mario ED - SpringerLink (Online service) TI - Celestial Messengers: Cosmic Rays: The Story of a Scientific Adventure T2 - Astronomers' Universe, SN - 9783642283710 AV - QC6.9 U1 - 530.01 23 PY - 2013/// CY - Berlin, Heidelberg PB - Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Imprint: Springer KW - physics KW - mathematics KW - Physics KW - History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics KW - Particle and Nuclear Physics KW - Astronomy, Observations and Techniques KW - Popular Science in Mathematics/Computer Science/Natural Science/Technology N1 - Prehistory - The electron, the proton and X-rays -- Prehistory - Radioactivity -- Cosmic rays - The antefacts -- The discovery - Victor F. Hess and the balloon flights -- The confirmation - Robert Millikan and the  “birth cry” of the borning atoms -- A turning point - Things are not as they look -- The earth magnetic field and the geomagnetic effects -- The positive electron -- The electromagnetic showers -- The muon -- The discovery of the π-meson, nuclear emulsions and the first “strange” particles -- The extended showers -- Nuclear stars -- The neutrino: elusive and capricious particles able to come from very far away -- What are the primary cosmic rays? -- The origin of cosmic rays -- X- and gamma rays from space N2 - The book describes from a historical point of view how cosmic rays were discovered. The book describes the research in cosmic rays. The main focus is on how the knowledge was gained, describing the main experiments and the conclusions drawn. Biographical sketches of main researchers are provided. Cosmic rays have an official date of discovery which is linked to the famous balloon flights of the Austrian physicist Hess in 1912. The year 2012 can therefore be considered the centenary of the discovery UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28371-0 ER -