The formation of the solar system: theories old and new

The dreamer

General background. Theories come and theories go ; Measuring atoms and the universe

Enlightenment. Greek offerings ; The shoulders of giants

The solar system : features and problems. The sun and the planets ; Satellites and rings ; Smaller bodies of the solar system ; The problem to be solved

Early theories. The French connection ; American Catherine-wheels ; British big tides ; Russian cloud capture, with British help ; German vortices, with a little French help ; McCrea's floccules ; What early theories indicate

New knowledge. Disks around new stars ; Planets around other stars ; What a theory should explain now

The return of the nebula. The new solar nebula theory : the angular momentum problem ; Making planets top-down ; A bottom-up alternative; Making planets faster : Wandering planets ; Back to top-down

Making stars. This is the stuff that stars are made of ; Making dense cool clouds ; A star is born, lives and dies

Capture. Close to the madding crowd ; Close encounters of the stellar kind ; Ever decreasing circles ; How many planetary systems? ; Starting a family ; Tilting, but not at windmills

The biggish bang hypothesis. The terrestrial planets raise problems ; A biggish bang theory : the Earth and Venus ; Behold the wandering moon ; Fleet Mercury and warlike Mars ; Gods of the sea and the nether regions ; Bits and pieces : asteroids, comets and dwarf planets ;