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OverviewA thought-provoking account of the scientific achievements and lives of cosmologists from Babylonians to Newton. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Arthur Koestler , Herbert ButterfieldPublisher: Penguin Books Ltd Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd Dimensions: Width: 12.90cm , Height: 3.50cm , Length: 19.80cm Weight: 0.450kg ISBN: 9780140192469ISBN 10: 0140192468 Pages: 624 Publication Date: 07 December 1989 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Out of Print Availability: In Print  Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock. Table of Contents"The Sleepwalkers - Arthur Koestler Preface Introduction Part One: The Heroic Age 1. Dawn 2. The Harmony of the Spheres 3. The Earth Adrift 4. The Failure of Nerve 5. The Divorce from Reality Chronological Table to Part One Part Two: Dark Interlude 1. The Rectangular Universe 2. The Walled-in Universe 3. The Universe of the Schoolmen Chronological Table to Part Two Part Three: The Timid Canon 1. The Life of Copernicus 2. The System of Copernicus Chronological Table to Part Three Part Four: The Watershed 1. The Young Kepler 2. The ""Cosmic Mystery"" 3. Growing Pains 4. Tycho de Brahe 5. Tycho and Kepler 6. The Giving of the Laws 7. Kepler Depressed 8. Kepler and Galileo 9. Chaos and Harmony 10. Computing a Bride 11. The Last Years Part Five: The Parting of the Ways 1. The Burden of Proof 2. The Trial of Galileo 3. The Newtonian Synthesis Chronological Table to Parts Four and Five Epilogue Selected Bibliography Notes Index"ReviewsThis is a history of cosmology subtitled A History of man's changing vision of the Universe. Beginning in the Heroic Age with the Babylonians and Egyptians, the sixth century Greeks - Pythagoras, the founder of Science as the word is understood today , Aristarchus, the Greek Copernicus , Plato and Aristotle, Ptolemy, the last great astronomer of the Alexandrian School, Koestler traces cosmic theories through the Early (Platonic) Fathers,the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance when he shifts his narrative from the evolution of cosmic ideas to the individuals who were chiefly responsible for them . He discusses the life and system of Copernicus whose discovery consisted in a reversal of the Ptolemaic system; the rivalry between Kepler and Galileo; the trial of Galileo which he believes was not in the nature of a fatal collision between opposite philosophies of existence...but rather a clash of individual temperaments aggravated by unlucky coincidences. He concludes his study with The Newtonian Synthesis because the cosmology of Einstein is as yet in a fluid state...too early to assess . This is a brilliant examination of inspiration, delusion, insight, dogmatism, a book which its author calls a history of collective obsessions and controlled schizophrenias . Not for the uninitiate. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationArthur Koestler (1905–1983) was an extraordinary polymath, writer, and political polemicist. His most famous works include the novels Darkness at Noon and Arrival and Departure; his autobiographical writings, including Spanish Testament and Scum of the Earth; and his visionary nonfiction, including The Ghost in the Machine, The Case of the Midwife Toad, and The Sleepwalkers. Herbert Butterfield was an influencial historiographer born in 1900 in Yorkshire, England. A graduate of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, he is best known for his 1931 work The Whig Interpretation of History. He died in 1979. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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