Some books you just can't put down!

[GreyGeek]

And the book, "A More Perfect Heaven", by Dava Sobel, is just such a book. It is an account of how Copernicus was persuaded to publish his only book, "On The Revolutions".

Sobel also wrote "Longitude", which was made into an excellent docudrama by PBS. Longitude is about how the first clock accurate enough to be used to determine longitude of ships was invented. One minute of time equates to about one nautical mile. While mariners could sight the Sun, planets or stars to determine their longitude, no one knew how to determine how far East or West a ship had traveled since leaving London except by dead reckoning and approximating the time the zenith of certain stars occurred. If a navigator was more than 10 seconds off the destination could be below the horizon and out of sight when the ship arrived at what the navigator thought was its location. To be used to determine longitude a clock must be stable and maintain accuracy to a second in all weather, temperatures and ship motions. Sobel details how a lone, uneducated but skilled craftsman of clocks, won the 10,000 Pound prize for inventing such a clock.

In "On The Revolutions" she details the struggles and fears Copernicus endured and the role Rheticus, a young mathematician barely into his twenties, played in getting his work published.

[Snowhog]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

+10

Sobel also wrote "Longitude", which was made into an excellent docudrama by PBS. Longitude is about how the first clock accurate enough to be used to determine longitude of ships was invented. One minute of time equates to about one nautical mile. While mariners could sight the Sun, planets or stars to determine their longitude, no one knew how to determine how far East or West a ship had traveled since leaving London except by dead reckoning and approximating the time the zenith of certain stars occurred. If a navigator was more than 10 seconds off the destination could be below the horizon and out of sight when the ship arrived at what the navigator thought was its location. To be used to determine longitude a clock must be stable and maintain accuracy to a second in all weather, temperatures and ship motions. Sobel details how a lone, uneducated but skilled craftsman of clocks, won the 10,000 Pound prize for inventing such a clock.

My father is an avid reader, as is his wife, and a few years ago they bought me Sobel's "Longitude". I agree with GreyGeek -- Longitude is an excellent 'read'.

GreyGeek@

Sobel also wrote "Galileos's Daughter" which, if you haven't read, I think you will also find to be very good. See About the Book: Galileo's Daughter

[GreyGeek]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

The blurb on the book about Copernicus has a tickler about "Galileos's Daughter", and it tickled me enough to want to read the book. 8)

[SteveRiley]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

Downloaded from the Seattle library and loaded onto my Nook. Thanks for the recommendation!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

My pleasure! ... now yours!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

Well, after reading that marvelous account about Copernicus and how Rheticus helped him, I just had to search out digitized copies of "On The Revolutions" and "First Accounts". Copernicus wasn't the mathematician that 26 year old Rheticus was, and in "On The Revolutions" one can see how Rheticus helped establish the mathematical basis for the Copernican revolution. This image, 020 verso from a digitized copy of his hand written book, gives an example:
[img width=274 height=400]http://www.bj.uj.edu.pl/bjmanus/revol/images/020v.jpg[/img]
That was from his first copy, which included the hole in the page made by his compass when he drew the concentric circles illustrating his theory.


Had I not recently read Euclid's Elements I would have never recognized those drawings in the margin of that page as variations on citations from Book 3, Proposition 8 and 13 as proof of his theory. Two hundred years later Newton would use those and other citations from Euclid's Elements to prove his theory of gravitation, not his "Method of Fluxions" (diff. calculus), as I had assumed for so many years. Since I was taught Newton's three laws using Newton's calculus it was natural to assume that he had used his own calculus to prove his theory. It amazes me that those who opposed Copernicus understood the irrevocable wisdom in Euclid's Elements, and would have had to reject it to reject the heliocentric cosmos. In doing so they had to cover their eyes, plug their ears and shout "na, na, na, na, na", and while claiming to represent God on Earth live dissolute lives filled with greed, lust and power, which they valued more than truth, and which separates Copernicus, a less than perfect canon, from them.

It was one amazement to realize that Newton used Euclid and not calculus to prove his theory. Here I sit, in the 70th year of my life, realizing the full magnitude of the fact that the logic described by Euclid, used by philosophers 2,300 years ago, is so concrete, so foundational, and so unassailable that it was used 1,700 and 1,900 years later to establish as fact the bedrock of our classical physics. Classical physics led to the discovery of the three laws of Thermodynamics, but those laws are so universal and so outside and independent of any other discipline, including physics, that if you have a theory which violates them then too bad for your theory.

So now, in my mind, there are FOUR legs supporting the stool of modern science: Euclid's Elements, Newton's three laws, Maxwell's four equations, and Quantum Mechanics.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

hi greygeekness,

if you would kindly provide a linky to where you obtained the image/document, I will forthwith and gadzooks provide it for my physics class this next semester!

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

A full digitized copy of the autograph of "On The Revolutions" is here. Visible on the page that contains the concentric circles representing the orbits of the six known planets (at the time) is the hole made by his compass when Capernicus (or Rheticus) drew the rings.

An English text of the high points of "On The Revolutions" is here. It illustrates how Copernicus used actual astronomical measurements he took to determine various parameters of the planets orbits. Using just circles and ellipses, he explains the seasons, the figure eight made by the sun, the retrograde motion of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, the eclipses, the phases of Venus and the moon, etc...

Copernicus supplied the shoulders that Tycho Bayhe Brahe and Keepler stood on, and they in turn supported Newton.

Sobel's book is very heavily documented and points out that despite his work and evidence, it took Rheticus to convince him that he should believe his own work and publish. Copernicus was full of doubts and fears, as you no doubt could understand, given the political climate of the time.

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

Copernicus supplied the shoulders that Tycho Bayhe and Keepler stood on, and they in turn supported Newton.

You mean Brahe?

Yes, Mikołaj Kopernik was one smart Pole

[GreyGeek]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

I did, thanks for the correction!

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Some books you just can't put down!

No problem, GG.