Abstract
THE number of stars visible to the naked eye on a clear night, in the whole sky, is roughly 5,000—a very moderate total indeed, in spite of the universal custom of using the number of the stars, in common with that of the sands of the sea, as synonymous with infinity. In all ages mankind in general has rightly preferred rather to admire and wonder at the stars than to count them. In the great problem of the structure of the sidereal universe, however, which astronomers are now attacking with much energy and success, one of the essential data is the number of stars in the different regions of the sky, classified according to their brightness or magnitude.
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CHAPMAN, S. The Number and Light of the Stars . Nature 93, 296–298 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/093296a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/093296a0