The "revolutionary, scintillating book" in which Galileo revealed his wondrous astronomical discoveries, with accompanying notes and historical context (Metascience).Galileo Galilei's Sidereus Nuncius is arguably the most dramatic scientific book ever published. It announced new and unexpected phenomena in the heavens, "unheard of through the ages," revealed by a mysterious new instrument. Galileo had ingeniously improved the rudimentary "spyglasses" that appeared i...

Galileo's telescopic discoveries, and especially his observation of sunspots, caused great debate in an age when the heavens were thought to be perfect and unchanging. Christoph Scheiner, a Jesuit mathematician, argued that sunspots were planets or moons crossing in front of the Sun. Galileo, on the other hand, countered that the spots were on or near the surface of the Sun itself, and he supported his position with a series of meticulous observations and mathematical demonstrations that e...

The title of our book would lead the reader to believe that in speaking ofthe chang ing image of the sciences, we are taking for granted the multiplicity of sciences, as these are practiced, for instance, in modern universities. That was, of course, not always the case. Although we can point to some subjects, for instance mathematical astronomy, as being demarcated to some extent from other subjects as far back as Antiquity, the current division into individual sciences can hardly be trace...

The Nobel Prize–winner shares "a masterful journey through humankind's scientific coming-of-age" from the Greeks to modern times (Brian Greene).In this rich, irreverent, and compelling history, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg takes us across centuries of human striving to unravel the mysteries of the world. This sweeping saga ranges from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad and Oxford, from Plato's Academy and the Museum of Alexandria to the cathedral s...

"Demonstrates an awesome command of the vast Galileo literature . . . [Wootton] excels in boldly speculating about Galileo's motives" ( The New York Times Book Review).Tackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer, and author, David Wootton places him at the center of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years; the beginnings of his scientific career constructing a "new physics"; his move to Florence seeking money, status, and gre...

An innovative exploration of the development of a revolutionary optical device and how it changed the world.Between 1608 and 1610 the canopy of the night sky changed forever, ripped open by an object created almost by accident: a cylinder with lenses at both ends. Galileo's Telescope tells the story of how an ingenious optical device evolved from a toy-like curiosity into a precision scientific instrument, all in a few years. In transcending the limits of h...

Just over four hundred years ago, in 1610, Galileo published the Siderius nuncius, or Starry Messenger, a 'hurried little masterpiece' in John Heilbron's words. Presenting to the world his remarkable observations using the recently invented telescope - of the craters of the moon, and the satellites of Jupiter, observations that forced changes to perceptions of the perfection of the heavens and the centrality of the Earth - the appearance of the little book is regarded asone of the greatest...

What is gravity? Nobody knows—and just about nobody knows that nobody knows. How something so pervasive can also be so mysterious, and how that mystery can be so wholly unrecognized outside the field of physics, is one of the greatest conundrums in modern science. But as award-winning author Richard Panek shows in this groundbreaking, mind-bending book, gravity is a cold case that's beginning to heat up.In The Trouble with Gravity, Panek invites the reader to experience thi...

A cogent portrayal of a turning point in the evolution of the freedom of thought and the beginnings of modern science.Celebrated, controversial, condemned, Galileo Galilei is a seminal figure in the history of science. Both Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein credit him as the first modern scientist. His 1633 trial before the Holy Office of the Inquisition is the prime drama in the history of the conflict between science and religion.Galileo was then sixty-nine years old an...

The ingenuity evidenced during the Renaissance was not just limited to the fine arts. A number of scientists and inventors also made astonishing breakthroughs in astronomy, medicine, physics, and more. Readers examine the scientific revolution, profiling Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo, and many other great thinkers who transformed the scientific and mechanical worlds.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the first scientist in the modern use of the term. Instead of relying on the works of Aristotle, he actually carried out experiments to test theories – legend has it that one of his experiments involved throwing weights off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. His astronomical observations with the telescope shattered the idea that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe, and led to his trial for heresy. He had a great lust for life, three children by a woman he n...

In this original, wide-ranging, and endlessly thought-provoking work of popular nonfiction, a leading science writer uncovers the pervasive presence of shadows in our world.For Plato, shadows were the symbol of our limitations. For Galileo, they knocked the Earth from the center of the cosmos. They are a source of fear and a symbol of ignorance, and they loom large in art and design, mythology and folklore, physics and metaphysics, and architecture and urban planning. From shadows ...