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"Astronomy History"
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The Copernican question
In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus publicly defended his hypothesis that the earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the center of a finite universe. But why did Copernicus make this bold proposal? And why did it matter? The Copernican Question reframes this pivotal moment in the history of science, centering the story on a conflict over the credibility of astrology that erupted in Italy just as Copernicus arrived in 1496. Copernicus engendered enormous resistance when he sought to protect astrology by reconstituting its astronomical foundations. Robert S. Westman shows that efforts to answer the astrological skeptics became a crucial unifying theme of the early modern scientific movement. His interpretation of this \"long sixteenth century,\" from the 1490s to the 1610s, offers a new framework for understanding the great transformations in natural philosophy in the century that followed.
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Copernicus and the Aristotelian Tradition
Drawing on a half century of scholarship, of Polish studies of Copernicus and Cracow University, and of Copernicus's sources, this book offers a comprehensive re-evaluation of Copernicus's achievement, and explains his commitment to the uniform, circular motions of celestial bodies, and his views about hypotheses.
eBook
Surveying the skies : how astronomers map the universe
Since the time of Galileo, astronomy has been driven by technological innovation. With each major advance has come the opportunity and enthusiasm to survey the sky in a way that was not possible before. It is these surveys of discovery that are the subject of this book. In the first few chapters the author discusses what astronomers learned from visible-light surveys, first with the naked eye, then using telescopes in the seventeenth century, and photography in the nineteenth century. He then moves to the second half of the twentieth century when the skies started to be swept by radio, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma ray telescopes, many of which had to be flown in satellites above the Earth's atmosphere. These surveys led to the discovery of pulsars, quasars, molecular clouds, protostars, bursters, and black holes. He then returns to Earth to describe several currently active large-scale projects that methodically collect images, photometry and spectra that are then stored in vast publicly-accessible databases. Dr. Wynn-Williams also describes several recent \"microsurveys\" - detailed studies of small patches of sky that have led to major advances in our understanding of cosmology and exoplanets.
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The Making of Copernicus
The volume articles examine exemplarily how some of the Copernicus myths came about and if they could hold their ground. They investigate methodological, institutional, textual and visual transformations of the Copernican doctrine and the topical, rhetorical and literary transformations of the historical person of Copernicus respectively.
eBook
Beyond the solar system : exploring galaxies, black holes, alien planets, and more : a history with 21 activities
\"In Beyond the Solar System, author Mary Kay Carson traces the evolution of humankind's astronomical knowledge, from the realization that we are not at the center of the universe to recent telescopic proof of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system.\"--Amazon.com.
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A Survey of European Astronomical Tables in the Late Middle Ages
This is a survey of the numerous astronomical tables compiled in the late Middle Ages, which represent a major intellectual enterprise. Such tables were often the best way available at the time for transmitting precise information to the reader.
eBook
Atlas of astronomical discoveries
Presents a history of astronomy and describes one hundred of the most significant discoveries of the last four hundred years, including such findings as the extraterrestrial origins of meteorites, the existence of dark matter, the spiral structure of the Milky Way, and the first exoplanet.
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Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East
Modern science historians have typically treated the sciences of the ancient Near East as separate from historical and cultural considerations. At the same time, biblical scholars, dominated by theological concerns, have historically understood the Israelite god as separate from the natural world. Cooley's study, bringing to bear contemporary models of science history on the one hand and biblical studies on the other hand, seeks to bridge a gap created by 20th-century scholarship in our understanding of ancient Near Eastern cultures by investigating the ways in which ancient authors incorporated their cultures' celestial speculation in narrative.
In the literature of ancient Iraq, celestial divination is displayed quite prominently in important works such as Enuma Eliš and Erra and Išum. In ancient Ugarit as well, the sky was observed for devotional reasons, and astral deities play important roles in stories such as the Baal Cycle and Shahar and Shalim. Even though the veneration of astral deities was rejected by biblical authors, in the literature of ancient Israel the Sun, Moon, and stars are often depicted as active, conscious agents. In texts such as Genesis 1, Joshua 10, Judges 5, and Job 38, these celestial characters, these \"sons of God,\" are living, dynamic members of Yahweh's royal entourage, willfully performing courtly, martial, and calendrical roles for their sovereign.
The synthesis offered by this book, the first of its kind since the demise of the pan-Babylonianist school more than a century ago, is about ancient science in ancient Near Eastern literature.
eBook