Astronomy Through the Ages: The Story Of The Human Attempt To Understand The Universe

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CRC Press, 2003 M05 20 - 320 páginas
From an historical perspective, this text presents an entirely non- mathematical introduction to astronomy from the first endeavours of the ancients to the current developments in research enabled by cutting edge technological advances. Free of mathematics and complex graphs, the book nevertheless explains deep concepts of space and time, of relativity and quantum mechanics, and of origin and nature of the universe. It conveys not only the intrinsic fascination of the subject, but also the human side and the scientific method as practised by Kepler, defined and elucidated by Galileo, and then demonstrated by Newton.

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PART I THE EARLY DEVELOPMENTS IN ASTRONOMY
1
PART II THE ERA OF THE TELESCOPE
62
PART III MODERN ASTRONOMY
115
Epilogue
187
Bibliography
203
Index
204

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Página 32 - This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit of our own behaviour, — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to...
Página viii - Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear : Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village- Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. Th...
Página 33 - From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.
Página 88 - The proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture.
Página 123 - Newton provided evidence to show that there " are therefore agents in nature able to make the particles of bodies stick together by very strong attractions. And it is the business of experimental philosophy to find them out.
Página 13 - BEFORE the beginning of years, There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance fallen from heaven, And madness risen from hell; Strength without hands to smite ; Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And life, the shadow of death.
Página 17 - AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight : And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

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