9781643132044 |
1643132040 |
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Library | Material Type | Call Number | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Sand Creek Library | Book | 520.92 FAUB | Nonfiction | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
A vivid narrative that connects the lives of four great astronomers as they discovered, refined, and popularized the first major scientific discovery of the modern era: that the Earth moves around the Sun.
Today we take for granted that a telescope allows us to see galaxies millions of light years away. But before its invention, people used nothing more than their naked eye to fathom what took place in the visible sky. So how did four men in the 1500's--of different nationality, age, religion, and class--collaborate to discover that the Earth revolved around the Sun? With this radical discovery that went against the Church, they created our contemporary world--and with it, the uneasy conditions of modern life.
Heaven on Earth is an intimate examination of this scientific family--that of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Fauber juxtaposes their scientific work with insight into their personal lives and political considerations, which shaped their pursuit of knowledge. Uniquely, he shows how their intergenerational collaboration was actually what made the scientific revolution possible.
Ranging from the birth of astronomy and the methods of early scientific research, Fauber reveals the human story that underlies this civilization altering discovery. And, contrary to the competitive nature of research today, collaboration was key to early scientific discovery. Before the rise of university research institutions, deep thinkers only had each other. They created a kind of family, related to each other via intellectual pursuit rather than blood.
These men called each other "brothers," "fathers," and "sons," and laid the foundations of modern science through familial co-work. And though the sixteenth century was far from the an open society for women, There were female pioneers in this "family" as well, including Brahe's sister Sophie, Kepler's mother, and Galileo's daughter.
Filled with rich characters and sweeping historical scope, Heaven on Earth reveals how the strong connections between these pillars of intellectual history moved science forward--and how, without them, we might have waited a long time for a heliocentric model of the universe.
Author Notes
L. S. Fauber attended Bard College and is completing a PhD in Computer Science at University of California Riverside. L. S. teaches Computer Science and Physics and lives in Riverside, California.
Reviews (1)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fauber, a UC-Riverside PhD student in computer science, seamlessly merges biography, history, and science in this amazing look at the four 16th-century astronomers whose work revealed the heliocentric solar system. Fauber opens with Nicolaus Copernicus, whose love for astronomy diverted him from a planned church career and led him to question whether Earth was at the center of the universe. Fauber then moves to Tycho Brahe, who built on Copernicus's work while using his royal patron's resources to build a lavish observatory. A fan letter introduced Brahe to Johannes Kepler, an eager young astronomer who would use Brahe's observational data to invent astrophysics and show that the planets traveled in elliptical orbits around the sun. Armed with Kepler's findings and his hand-built telescope, Galileo saw the moon's terrain, and the moons of Jupiter. In addition to these four figures, Fauber brings 16th-century Europe--when plagues scoured the populace, religious controversies could get one burned at the stake, and a wealthy patron made the difference between success and anonymity--to life. Rich with detail, this is an extraordinary saga of stubborn scientific curiosity, and of the first inklings of this planet's true place in the universe. Agent: Luba Ostashevsky, Ayesha Pande Literary. (Dec.)
Table of Contents
Introducing the Stars | p. xi |
Nicolaus Copernicus | p. 1 |
Nicolaus in the Old World | p. 3 |
The Fall of the House of Watzenrode | p. 13 |
In Opposition | p. 16 |
The First Copernican | p. 22 |
The First Account | p. 25 |
The First Dissent | p. 26 |
The Second Account | p. 29 |
Postmortem | p. 34 |
Tycho Brahe | p. 37 |
New Stars | p. 39 |
A Burdensome Privilege | p. 42 |
Hven | p. 49 |
Urania Through the Years | p. 50 |
Treasures on the Broken Road | p. 59 |
The Parvenu | p. 64 |
Goodbye to All That | p. 67 |
The Outside World | p. 68 |
A Letter Received | p. 72 |
Johannes Kepler | p. 75 |
Fathers, Sons, Ghosts | p. 77 |
The Theological Turn | p. 82 |
Judgment | p. 88 |
A Letter Sent | p. 90 |
The Need for Harmony | p. 92 |
The Eyes of the Bear | p. 95 |
Two Families | p. 96 |
Lunacy | p. 103 |
Reversals of Fortune | p. 106 |
The War on Astronomy | p. 109 |
Ascension | p. 114 |
Galileo Galilei | p. 119 |
Descent | p. 121 |
Upon Leaving the Top of the Arc | p. 123 |
Pupils | p. 126 |
Horky's Odyssey | p. 131 |
Their Rekindled Friendship | p. 138 |
The Naming of Things | p. 139 |
The New Man | p. 142 |
Their Dying Friendship | p. 147 |
The Renaming of Things | p. 150 |
First Signs of Night | p. 154 |
The Animals | p. 158 |
Wine and Women | p. 162 |
Two Winters and a Spring | p. 172 |
The Other Side of the Door | p. 179 |
A Bad Memory | p. 186 |
A Dove | p. 187 |
A Tongue of Fire | p. 189 |
Death and the Garden | p. 192 |
The Changing Tides | p. 195 |
Works of His Golden Years | p. 198 |
A Family Man | p. 212 |
The Dialogue | p. 214 |
The Teacher | p. 219 |
Lacunae | p. 226 |
Life Inside a Box | p. 227 |
The Four Last Things in Cruel Disorder | p. 231 |
Appendix: Seven Vignettes From the New Astronomy | p. 239 |
Reader's Bibliography | p. 257 |
Notes | p. 265 |
Index | p. 327 |