History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began

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A Superb History of Observational Solar Astrophysics
A Great Historical Education
Brilliant Book
Best Solar Book ever

The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began
Stuart Clark
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691126607

Book Description

In September of 1859, the entire Earth was engulfed in a gigantic cloud of seething gas, and a blood-red aurora erupted across the planet from the poles to the tropics. Around the world, telegraph systems crashed, machines burst into flames, and electric shocks rendered operators unconscious. Compasses and other sensitive instruments reeled as if struck by a massive magnetic fist. For the first time, people began to suspect that the Earth was not isolated from the rest of the universe. However, nobody knew what could have released such strange forces upon the Earth--nobody, that is, except the amateur English astronomer Richard Carrington.

In this riveting account, Stuart Clark tells for the first time the full story behind Carrington's observations of a mysterious explosion on the surface of the Sun and how his brilliant insight--that the Sun's magnetism directly influences the Earth--helped to usher in the modern era of astronomy. Clark vividly brings to life the scientists who roundly rejected the significance of Carrington's discovery of solar flares, as well as those who took up his struggle to prove the notion that the Earth could be touched by influences from space. Clark also reveals new details about the sordid scandal that destroyed Carrington's reputation and led him from the highest echelons of science to the very lowest reaches of love, villainy, and revenge.

The Sun Kings transports us back to Victorian England, into the very heart of the great nineteenth-century scientific controversy about the Sun's hidden influence over our planet.

Customer Reviews:

A Superb History of Observational Solar Astrophysics.......2007-08-03

Although this excellent book's subtitle mentions "modern astronomy", the book is really about the sun and how certain key individuals, the "sun kings", have made important discoveries towards our better understanding of some aspects of our nearest star and how the earth can be directly affected. In particular, the role that sunspots and solar flares play in producing auroras and magnetic storms on earth is historically explored. The author weaves his remarkable tale from the mid-nineteenth to the early twenty first century. Everything is brought together in the last couple of chapters in which our current understanding of solar astrophysics is presented. Also discussed is modern research on the observed relationship between the number of sunspots and the earth's climate - another possible contributing factor to climate change. The writing style is clear, very engaging and quite friendly; this book is very difficult to put down, in part because the author skillfully includes details of individuals' personal lives intermingled with the science that they were pursuing. The book can be enjoyed by everyone since the author was very careful in avoiding scientific jargon and in meticulously explaining scientific matters. I definitely look forward to reading more of this author's books.

A Great Historical Education.......2007-08-01

This book is real history. It is well written, covers the important points of the history being written about, and is very informative. Clark has written a history of the discovery of the nature of the sun, and of how its magnetic field effects the earth. Clark does a very thorough job describing the lead researchers and how they operated. The basic science is discussed very clearly. I learned a lot.

This book is highly recommended for anyone even remotely interested in history.

Brilliant Book.......2007-05-17

I read this book after hearing Seth Shostak's great interview with Stuart Clark on the SETI podcast. It is a fabulous tale of astronomy in Victorian times, complete with tragic motifs and quirky insights into what amateur astronomers and gentleman scientists thought about the Sun in those times. Great book.

Best Solar Book ever.......2007-05-12

I have been an amatuer Solar observer for twenty years and own an extensive library of volumes dedicated to Solar Physics and the history of Solar observation."The Sun Kings:The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How modern Astronomy began" by Stuart Clark is one of the best that I have ever read.I was amazed that on allmost every page was a jewel of history that that I was previously unaware of.Mr Clark's writing was easy to follow and a joy to read.I highly recomend this book to anyone interested in the history of Solar observation.

Conflict in the Cosmos: Fred Hoyle's Life in Science

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Thorough, engaging, chock full of insider detail!
a very fine book about a great scientist
Mitton's Hoyle The Stuff Of Which Standard Lives Are Made
Not so wrong
The best way to write about science

Conflict in the Cosmos: Fred Hoyle's Life in Science
Simon Mitton
Manufacturer: Joseph Henry Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0309093139

Book Description

A veritable cult figure to many, Sir Fred Hoyle was one of the most important, famous, and controversial figures of 20th-century astronomy. He coined the term "Big Bang" and earned himself scientific celebrity by enthusiastically endorsing theories that ran counter to conventional wisdom.

Fred Hoyle's prolific career spanned more than 60 years. During that time, he made major contributions in fundamental areas of astronomy. His most important work focused on the evolution of stars, the origin of the chemical elements, the nature of gravitational forces, and the origin of life on Earth. But he is perhaps best remembered for his rare talent as a science communicator. He hosted one of the first radio programs that focused on science and then moved his show to the new medium of television, making him a household name long before such science luminaries as Patrick Moore or Carl Sagan rose to prominence.

A man of ceaseless intellectual activity, Hoyle pushed the boundaries of our knowledge by being both right and wrong. When he was right, his contributions were of Nobel Laureate quality. Indeed, even when he was wrong, he stimulated his exasperated opponents to work that much more furiously to produce damning evidence against him, thus yielding additional discoveries and leading to more knowledge on a topic.

Simon Mitton's sensitive biography tells the story of Hoyle's life as well as his science. Structuring each chapter around an intellectual puzzle, the science is framed within the context of the knowledge available to Hoyle at the time. Drawing on his personal knowledge of Fred Hoyle, Mitton vividly recreates the many public clashes between Hoyle and his critics, and at the same time he clearly explains the science underlying the conflict.

Customer Reviews:

Thorough, engaging, chock full of insider detail!.......2007-08-08

Author Simon Mitton is himself an astrophysicist, educated at Oxford where Fred Hoyle worked for so many years. This gives him the ability to write about Fred Hoyle with a level of insight and scientific judgement that a lay author would not be able to bring. Mitton traces Hoyle's life in detail, which is what you would expect from any good biography. But here we also learn about not only the things that made Fred Hoyle famous, like the Steady State theory, his science fiction work such as "The Black Cloud," Julie Christie (!), but also his greatest contributions to physics--stellar processes and evolution--unknown to most people (certainly to me). Hoyle was virtually an idea machine, churning out an amazing number of ideas during his life--some of them decidedly crackpot, but many of them utterly brilliant. We're also treated to a detailed view of the Oxford bureaucracy, and how Fred brought it to at least some kind of truce--for a while. This is a remarkably detailed, fascinating view of an unique man, presenting Hoyle as whole person, brilliant yet flawed. Most of all, though, it is a compelling read. When I finished the book I was actually sad that the experience was over.

a very fine book about a great scientist.......2005-09-29

this is an excellent book about a fascinating scientist, fred hoyle. it is well written and almost anyone with a smattering of knowledge of physics and astronomy can follow and learn from this biography. mitton lays out hoyle's ideas clearly and shows how they differ from other theories and how they advanced science.

also, unerlying it all is a theme that it is more than ok to think beyond the accepted knowledge, and that is how science develops. hoyle may have been wrong on some subjects but he also developed much of what is now basic astrophysics. while hoyle is often referred to as wrong about the big bang et al, time may well show that he was right after all. big bang leads down some dead ends, whereas recent discoveries and theories algin more with hoyle's steady state theory. newton and others thought so too.

a good read and a good buy.

dgs

Mitton's Hoyle The Stuff Of Which Standard Lives Are Made.......2005-09-24

Reading through CONFLICT IN THE COSMOS, the biography of British astronomer Fred Hoyle, I enjoyed finding out things I never knew before, about science and about Hoyle's own fiction writing. Everyone with an interest in movies knows that the divine Julie Christie emerged during a period of UK filmmaking in the early 1960s that marked a revival of world interest in British cinema, playing very much the contemporary, disaffected "chick" of so-called swinging London. Her subsequent sppearance in Truffaut's FAHRENHEIT 451 was widely regarded as a mis-step, that science fiction wa snot her metier. But as Mitton shows, Christie made her first big breakthrough in a BBC version of Hoyle's "The Nature of the Universe." This series was re-titled A FOR ANDROMEDA, and Hoyle personally selected Julie Christie from a number of pretty girls he viewed at RADA. "That's her!" he exclaimed, and a star was born! So for Christie, FAHRENHEIT 45` was not such an anomaly after all. Mitton treats the matter of Hoyle's relations with film companies with the same cool accuracy with which he handles the more controversial aspects of Hoyle's life.

It was a wonderful life in which he sought to bring back international interest in and prestige for British astronomy after a sorry period in the immediate postwar era. CONFLICT IN THE COSMOS suffers from one fault, a nationalism which perhaps never even occurs to author Mitton, an underlying assumption that what's good for Britain is good for astrophysics and the two things to me don't seem that equivalent.

We see Hoyle as a man with irrational bursts of confidence and indeed over-confidence, with sort of a big mouth that got him into trouble now and again. Mitton carefully details the events of the scandal surrounding Hoyle's ill-timed remarks on the 1974 Nobel award for physics to Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish. When Hoyle publicly stated that "the girl" Jocelyn Bell had been cheated of a third share in the Prize, the fat was really in the fire and an enormous hoopla ignited. Hoyle himself might have lost his chance for a Nobel himself, and as Mitton hints he might very well have had a chance to win it in 1983, had not his intemperate remarks put his hopes in purdah.

And yet he had courage, vision, a brilliance of mind and perception that come along (in astronomy) once every thirty or forty years, and he was unafraid to put his ass on the line when it came to speaking up for causes he believed in. We won't see his like again, and the world is a sadder place since he folded up his telescope and disappeared into starlight.

Not so wrong.......2005-06-21

Fred Hoyle is famously remembered for being wrong about the origin of he Universe. But one of the most intriguing things About Simon Mitton's book is the suggestion that he may not have been very wrong, since the math of his steady state theory matches the math of the now-fashionable inflation theory. Mitton is good at giving such unexpected insights, although he dwells a little too long on the politics of British science in the 1970s. His story of a man who went his own way through the scientific world would make a great basis for a documentary.

The best way to write about science.......2005-04-12

This is the best way to write about science! Although Simon Mitton is a distinguished astronomer, this is science written for anyone intelligent, regardless of background - those of us in the humanities as well as sciences can read this fascinating book with equal enjoyment.

Fred Hoyle was probably wrong on how the universe began, holding to steady state rather than the Big Bang, in which most scientists now believe. But his reasons were perfectly cogent, as Mitton points out. He was also the first true communicator of science to a wide audience, including his brilliant science fiction plays for children that I can still recall over 40 years later. If astronomy is now a cutting edge subject, with considerable lay interest (especially after Mitton and Hoyle's Cambridge colleague Stephe Hawking) it is all because Hoyle was there first.

In short, Mitton has written an outstanding book for all of us. I should also add that the mistakes pointed out in the Publisher's Weekly review have been corrected by the final version - they must have seen proof copies.

Buy this book! Science has become fun for all of us, and Hoyle's pioneering research and communication skills set that ball in motion. Simon Mitton is a worthy follower of his old master, and this book is proof of that.

Christopher Catherwood (author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ: Carroll and Graf, 2004)

Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas

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Edmond Halley Edmond Halley Edmond Halley
A well-deserved work on a fascinating scientist...
This well researched book gives a rich view of Halley

Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas
Alan Cook
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198500319

Book Description

Edmond Halley (1656-1742), MA, LLD, FRS, Capt. RN, Savillian Professor of Geometry and Astronomer Royal, stands pre-eminent among Oxford, English, and European scientists. A contemporary of Wren, Pepys, Hooke, Handel, Purcell, and Dryden, he was a schoolboy in London while the Great Fire raged, and was an active participant in the Enlightenment, an age of profound developments in all the arts and sciences. As a younger contemporary of Isaac Newton, he had a crucial part in the Newtonian revolution in the natural sciences. It was Halley who set the question that led Newton to write the Principia, and who edited, paid for, and reviewed it. In later years he applied the methods of the Principia widely in astronomy and geophysics. Now more widely known for his prediction of the return of "his" comet, Halley discovered the proper motion of stars, made important studies of the moon's motion, and his investigations of the Earth's magnetic field and of tides were unrialled for centuries. His prediction of the transit of Venus led to Cook's voyage to Tahiti. He was far more than an cloistered academic; his exploits as a naval captain led to perilous adventures, and he was also a notable servant of the State. Much material about his eventful career has come to light in recent years, making this a timely new account of the life, scientific interests, and continuing influence of this engaging and adventurous scholar. Sir Alan Cook has written a fascinating and illuminating account of Halley's life and science, making this a unique and highly readable biography of one of the key figures of his time.

Customer Reviews:

Edmond Halley Edmond Halley Edmond Halley.......2006-11-21

I don't know of any more repetitious dissonance than this effort. I looked forward to an examination of Halley's life, understanding that he left little in the way of personal documentation. That's why I looked to a research scholar. But here we get a smattering of details restated endlessly and a complete dismissal if any attempt at characterization of Halley in the flesh. Halley was, in fact, an intellect, scientist, spy, a cursing seaman, and vigorous modern man in the awakening era of 17th Century England. He wove an interesting path among high political power, great scientists, publishers, shipmates, and London society with almost defiant, irreligious self-assurance. He was married, raised children, and developed Newton's new mathematics into practical results others could understand. We see none of this in Cook's account. The text is dry enough that by midway through I had developed a cough complete with clouds of dust. The author is judiciously reluctant to draw any conclusions or added insight from the details commingled throughout. And the repetition is unbearable. Some statements are made a dozen or more times. It's a cacophony that make one almost dizzy and then, at last, the noise simply ends. If you want more, simply extract any 40 paragraphs at random and string them on at the end. Like the comet, it would just keep going round and round.

A well-deserved work on a fascinating scientist..........2001-12-07

An outstandingly thorough and meticulously researched biography of one of history's most outstanding scientists. Matters related to events in Halley's life are notoriously difficult to reconstruct. He was not a pack-rat like Newton or Kepler, and failed to keep thorough diaries like Hooke. Biographers have to rely on the notes of others, public records, and published papers. Cook rises to the occasion and has produced a biographic work that will rival those of of other important scientists of the era.

Though remembered chiefly for the comet that bears his name, Halley was a scientist of extraordinary breadth and depth. Cook reconstructs all the major categories of Halley's productivity. Chapters are devoted to his youth, the year spent at St. Helena mapping the southern stars, his key role in prying the Principia out of Newton, his role in the quest for longitude at sea, his years as the Astronomer Royal, as well as his career on the high seas, both as a ship's captain (civilian) and scientist/explorer. A scientist like Halley demands a biography of considerable scope, and Cook delivers.

As much as any biography I've read, Cook's "Halley" spends considerable space delving into the contemporary zeitgeist. The 30 page opening chapter "Halley's World," is a splendid essay on the culture and spiritual/political/popular world of the late 17th and early 18th century in Great Britain and Europe.

This book is not an easy read, but it is absolutely essential for any student of the golden age of science. Halley lived in Newton's shadow, but was never eclipsed. Cook has done the literary world a great service in this book.

This well researched book gives a rich view of Halley.......1998-01-23

Edmond Halley is famous for his comet - or more specifically for showing that the comet returned by calculating its orbit. We also know of his relationship with Isaac Newton, and Halley's crucial role in the publishing of Newton's Principia from Westfall's major biography of Netwon.

Alan Cook has produced a well researched and sympathetic biography of Halley. Here we find details of Halley's upbringing, his voyage to St Helena to survey the southern skies and observe a transit of Venus, and his appraisal of Hevelius's observations by naked eye compared with telescopically aided observations. There is a basic account of his marriage (Mary Halley has left little trace behind her) and a good account of Halley's finances. The circimstances of the murder of his father are explored, and once again we are reminded of the autocratic and mercantile flavour of those times.

There is a full account of Halley's sea voyages, undertaken as they were in tiny unstable wooden ships. His mapping of the magnetic deviation of the compass, and of the tides and depth of the sea in the Channel mark Halley as perhaps one of the first government scientists.

Halley's time as the Royal Astronomer is documented, together with his fractious time at the Chester Mint during the recoinage overseen by Newton. Cook provides a mildly critical account of Halley's involvement with the publication of Flamsteed's star catalogue.

Halley is shown as a man of action, a shaper, and a man prepared to trust his judgement in difficult circumstances. This is a sharp contrast to the Newton revealed by Westfall's book, the obsessive and semi-reclusive thinker concerned mainly with his own thoughts.

Halley's world is described, and his interactions with Wren, Hooke, Pepys and the royal households of the time are well documented. The myth of Halley's poverty after his father's murder is laid to rest with some detailed examination of estates, wills and chancery court proceedings.

There are technical details of the Venus transit measurements, and a very welcome analysis of Newton's lunar theory, together with a statistical comparison of the Moon positions of Halley and Flamsteed.

Book Description

There is a missing chapter in the history of astronomy—between the work of Galileo and Newton—and it is a chapter that belongs to England. In the period before the English Civil War, Horrocks was the greatest astronomer in the kingdom. He knew the positions and motions of the planets more accurately than any person of his time, and was the first to appreciate the true scale of the solar system and formulate a valid theory for the wanderings of the moon. Yet he was not an elderly grey-bearded sage, but a young man living in provincial obscurity, who on his death had barely come of age but who left a great scientific legacy.

Customer Reviews:

The Life and Times of a Genius.......2006-05-21

The accomplishments of Jeremiah Horrocks, as depicted in this book, are truly astounding. The author carefully reconstructs Horrocks' genealogy, his brief life and his ground-breaking work in astronomy, amidst the backdrop of seventeenth century England. The book is well-written, clear and engaging. Less appealing to me was that the book contains many passages reproduced in the original old English. This slowed me down a bit since I found them cumbersome due to the different spelling and sentence structure characteristic of the period. On the other hand, this may be inevitable, at least to some degree, because of the book's subject matter. Overall, this is an interesting read that would likely be particularly appealing to astronomers at all levels.

Lost in Civl War of England, but Rediscovered........2005-04-22

Since the dawn of history, every civilization has seen men who studied the skies. In Europe and Asia, astronomers existed in Babylon, Egypt, India and China. In America, the Incas and Aztecs built pyramids and temples which showed knowledge and fascination with the sun, moon, and stars in the night sky. England had Stonehenge.

There's not much factual knowledge about Jeremiah Horrocks short
life; there has been only one other biography to surface, published in 1859 by A. B. Whatton. Photographs show the area and places he lived as he moved about. Born in May, 1618, he was only fourteen years old when he entered Cambridge on July 5, 1632. Just seven years later (1639), he was knowledgeable about the solar system and his observation of the primitive set-up he used in Carr House to view a rare celestial event, the "transit of Venus" was documented. It is similar to the way we are encouraged to watch the eclipse of the sun so as not to be blinded by the strong rays. He died in 1641.

The Royal Greenwith Observatory was founded in 1675; John Flamsteed was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal. However, Jeremiah Horrock is known as the "Father of British Astronomy. This book was released to coincide with the June, 2004, viewing of Venus moving across the face of the sun (for only the fifth time since the 1639 occurrence: about every 73 years or so).

My son Geoffrey earned his PhD in Astronomy at the University of Chicago and learned how to handle the monster telescopes at Kitt Peak as a grad student way out there in Arizona.

Peter Aughton has written ENDEAVOR, RESOLUTION, and NEWTON'S APPLE. He teaches at the University of the West of England and a Fellow of the Institute for Math. In 1970s he was involved with the Concorde supersonic airliner. He certainly knows his astronomy from primitive times.

A Forgotten Astronomer, Worth Remembering.......2004-08-31

Isaac Newton famously said, "If I have seen further than others before me, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Newton was not always so quick to acknowledge his debt to his fellow scientists, but everyone knows the remark could apply to indisputable giants like Galileo and Kepler. However, he also would have meant a giant who has, almost three centuries later, become almost an unknown within the history of astronomy. In _The Transit of Venus: The Brief, Brilliant Life of Jeremiah Horrocks, Father of British Astronomy_ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), Peter Aughton, who has written before on the voyages of Captain Cook and on Newton, puts Horrocks into his rightful place. It would be too much to say that he gives us a full picture of Horrocks and his work, for the mass of materials about the astronomer is just too meager. However, Horrocks was a brilliant astronomical observer and theoretician, and Newton knew it then as we should now.

There was in June 2004 a transit of Venus, only the fifth since Horrocks watched his in 1639. A transit occurs when Venus seems to cross the face of the Sun, and was important in those days because it could be used to calculate how far the Sun was from the Earth. He studied Kepler's work at college in Cambridge, and trusted Kepler, but not blindly; he discovered that Kepler, who had correctly predicted a 1631 transit of Venus, had mistakenly missed a transit that was coming in 1639. Horrocks only realized this with a month to spare, but he was ready to trace the planet crossing the Sun; he did so by training his telescope on the Sun and projecting the picture upon a screen within a darkened room. It was his mathematical analysis of the movements and timing of what he had seen that enabled him to confirm that Venus was moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, just as Kepler's laws had implied. However, a clear view of the planet crossing the solar disk showed it to be much smaller than Kepler had thought, and the calculated distance between the Earth and the Sun was far larger than any previous astronomer had come close to considering. Copernicus had estimated the distance to be 7.5 million kilometers, Kepler 22.1, and Horrocks weighed in with 95.4. Even then, he was well below the real figure of 149, but it can be said without exaggeration that he was the first man who had an inkling of how big the solar system really was.

Horrocks wrote up his account of the transit, and also went on to show that the Moon tracked an elliptical, not circular, path around the Earth, although the path of the Moon wobbled irregularly due to the gravity of the Sun. He also showed that Saturn and Jupiter were vastly larger than the Earth. Astonishingly, he made these discoveries when he was only twenty-two; only a year later in 1641 he was dead. There is no evidence about the cause of his death. His account of his researches was not published until 1662, and he was belatedly recognized as a genius by the new Royal Society. His work was revolutionary at the time he did it, but was not as influential as it could have been, if he had been within the mainstream of British science rather than observing and theorizing near Liverpool, if he had lived longer, and if Britain were not torn by its Civil War. Newton, in his monumental _Principia_, gave special credit to Horrocks for divining the elliptical orbit of the Moon. His influence might be small, but his importance as an observer and as a theoretician (those qualities are not often so well combined in one person) is clear. As much as can be known about him is in Aughton's necessarily brief but admiring review, from which readers will get a good idea of how astronomy was done at the time, and a welcome introduction to an original thinker.

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Great Astronomers
Robert S. Ball
Manufacturer: Dodo Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1406505447

Book Description

There may have been other discoverers who have done more for science than ever Ptolemy accomplished, but there never has been any other discoverer whose authority on the subject of the movements of the heavenly bodies has held sway over the minds of men for so long a period as the fourteen centuries during which his opinions reigned supreme. The doctrines he laid down in his famous book, "The Almagest," prevailed throughout those ages.

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Galileo: Astronomer and Physicist (Great Minds of Science)

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(non-fiction) Galileo Astronomer and Physicist

Galileo: Astronomer and Physicist (Great Minds of Science)
Paul Hightower
Manufacturer: Enslow Publishers
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Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0894907875

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(non-fiction) Galileo Astronomer and Physicist.......2002-05-22

This book, is mostly about the Galileo's life. It is a biography of him. Galileo was born on January 8, 1610. He was a great astronomer, in fact, one of the greatest astronomers that had ever lived. He discovered many things that nobody else bothered to know about. He corrected many ancient theories, for example, Aristotle's. One of the theories of Aristotles was the theory of motion. Aristotle believed that heavier objects should fall faster than lighter objects. Galileo then was curious about this theory and tested it. It then seemed that Aristotle was incorrect. Galileo though had proof and told other people about the theory that he had. Many didn't believe him because Aristotle was one of the classics and had been around for centuries. Galileo did many other magnificent discoveries and corrections that had changed our lives. Today, we respect him as the greatest astronomer that had ever lived.
Why I recommend this book is that it is full of information. It tells about practically anything you want to know about Galileo. It is a useful reference book that is also surprisingly easy to understand. It shows and makes reading biographies fun.
Though I don't really have a favorite part, I enjoyed some of the sections in the book. Such as when Galileo finds that Aristotle's theories were mostly all incorrect, it was an amazing discovery and correction. The book also gave me knowledge about who named this and that.

Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe (Great Discoveries)

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a remarkable woman's discovery of the cosmic distance scale
Miss Leavitt Takes Center Stage With Edward Pickering, Harlow Shapley, and Edwin Hubble
The Big Bang of Astronomical Data
History of Astronomy at its Best
Star Light, Star Bright...

Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe (Great Discoveries)
George Johnson
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393051285

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A forgotten heroine of science and how she solved one of the crucial mysteries of the universe.

How big is the universe? In the early twentieth century, scientists took sides. One held that the entire universe was contained in the Milky Way galaxy. Their champion was the strong-willed astronomer Harlow Shapley. Another camp believed that the universe was so vast that the Milky Way was just one galaxy among billions—the view that would prevail, proven by the equally headstrong Edwin Hubble.

Almost forgotten is the Harvard Observatory "computer"—a human number cruncher hired to calculate the positions and luminosities of stars in astronomical photographs—who found the key to the mystery. Radcliffe-educated Henrietta Swan Leavitt, fighting ill health and progressive deafness, stumbled upon a new law that allowed astronomers to use variable stars—those whose brightness rhythmically changes—as a cosmic yardstick. Miss Leavitt's Stars is both a masterly account of how we measure the universe and the moving story of a neglected genius. 10 illustrations.

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a remarkable woman's discovery of the cosmic distance scale.......2007-06-27

This book should be a must read for any high school or college Astronomy
or natural science class. Its an easy read (few hours) of the remarkable
Ms. Henrietta Leavitt, who discovered that stars at a fixed distance
(in our closest neighbor galaxy, the large Magellanic Cloud) vary in their
apparent (and thus true) brightness with a period proportional to their
average brightness. Thus by measuring the time (typically a few days)
between successive peaks in brightness, the intrinsic brightness, or
luminosity, could be accurately inferred. And knowing this, for such a
star in a distant galaxy, the distance to that galaxy followed from
simple comparison with the apparent brightness. This allowed the
distance scale, or cosmic yardstick, to be determined for the first time,
all from the patient and largely unrecognized work of woman "computer"
(as they were then called) at the Harvard Observatory painstakingly
measuring glass negative photographic plates of the southern sky taken
with Harvard telescopes in Peru and elsewhere. Johhson's book is a
beautifully written account of scientific discovery, told in a clear but
gripping manner.

Miss Leavitt Takes Center Stage With Edward Pickering, Harlow Shapley, and Edwin Hubble.......2007-06-11

Allan Sandage, the respected astronomer and protégé of Edwin Hubble, once said: "What are galaxies? No one knew before 1900. Very few people knew in 1920. All astronomers knew after 1924."

Miss Henrietta Leavitt died in 1921. Working for years at the Harvard College Observatory under the noted astronomer Edward Pickering, this nearly forgotten observatory assistant, a 'computer' (one that does computations by hand), provided a tool critical to unraveling the most basic question facing astronomers in the early twentieth century. Was the Milky Way essentially the entire universe, or was the Milky Way just one of many large clusters of stars? These hypothetical clusters went by various names: island universes, nebulae, and galaxies.

How could one demonstrate that some stars were in a nearby cluster, while others were actually much farther away? Triangulation methods, a trigonometric approach, only worked for the sun and a few nearby stars. Is a dim star a bright star that is far away, or is a dim star simply a dim star that is nearby?

This short book, Miss Leavitt's Stars, is less biography, and more history and science than the title might suggest. Too little is known about Henrietta Leavitt herself. We do know that Miss Leavitt carefully analyzed the brightness of variables stars (those that brighten and dim over some period) in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Subsequently, she discovered a remarkable relationship between the brightness of individual stars and the lengths of their periods. The brighter the variable star, the longer the period. Furthermore, since the Magellanic variables are probably all about the same distance from the earth, their periods are apparently associated with their actual light emission.

What all this means is that by measuring the period (the rhythm of brightening and dimming) one could determine the intrinsic brightness of a variable star. In turn, by comparing this calculated intrinsic brightness to the observed brightness an astronomer can determine how far away the star actually is.

This breakthrough fueled the competition among astronomers to resolve the size of the universe. The ongoing debate between Harlow Shapley and Edwin Hubble dominates the second half of this short book. Hubble wins, and the concept of a galaxy becomes commonplace. Even more remarkable, distant galaxies are shown to be accelerating away: the universe is expanding at a rate determined by the Hubble Constant. I like the quote about Edwin Hubble from a hometown newspaper: Youth who left Ozark Mountains to study stars causes Einstein to change his mind.

George Johnson writes with a clarity and precision not always found in science books for the layman. Miss Leavitt's Stars is a delightful blend of biography, history, and astronomy.

Trivia: I was once a computer for a month. As a new geophysicist, I worked on a seismic crew in the Louisiana swamps for a year, rotating between various crew positions each month to gain first hand experience. While holding the job title 'computer', I analyzed by hand raw data as it was collected, essentially quality controlling seismic data that was slated for intense processing on large mainframe computers. Unlike Miss Henrietta Leavitt, my hand calculations were not entirely manual. I did possess a hand calculator, a tremendous advantage. It is difficult to imagine the meticulous calculations carried out day after day, night after night, by Miss Leavitt.

The Big Bang of Astronomical Data.......2006-10-19

Proper and overdue credit is paid in this book to Henrietta Leavitt, but the story the author tells is more the story of two generations of astronomers from Edward Pickering to Edwin Hubble and beyond, who proved chiefly by observation that the universe was not merely our Milky Way but an immensity of such proportion that even the idea of an omnipresent deity seems ludicrously tiny. The stress in the title should fall on the word Stars. Author Johnson is careful not to dishonor Miss Leavitt by exaggerating her central importance or by overdrawing her martyrdom as a "glass-ceilinged" woman in a male-chauvinistic era. Leavitt's life was fascinating indeed, though little documented, but Johnson's tale is not a hagiography. It's a tight, lucid history-of-science in 130 pages, a perfect book to read on a transcontinental flight or while waiting for George W to acknowledge a mistake.

History of Astronomy at its Best.......2006-06-02

This is a great little book. In 130 pages of well-crafted prose, the author recounts the history of one of the most exciting periods in modern astronomy. Concentrating mainly on the early decades of the twentieth century, he explores astronomers' efforts to understand the size and structure of the universe. As the book's title suggests, Miss Leavitt's stars, i.e., Cepheid variables, play a very important role in this quest. However, according to the author, so little is known about Miss Leavitt's life per se that the book's subtitle is an exaggeration: the book is more about early twentieth century astronomy and much less about Miss Leavitt's life. Scientific principles are very clearly explained using simple analogies. No mathematical formulas are used anywhere in the book - an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on your point of view. Written in a most engaging style, this book would be of interest to anyone, but especially science/astronomy buffs.

Star Light, Star Bright..........2005-12-16

In the late 1870s, Harvard University embarked on a program of cataloging the brightness of every star in the universe. Under the leadership of a former professor at MIT, Edward Charles Pickering, they set out to document the brightness and color; until this time, astronomy had focused on the position and motion through space of the stars. It was thought that the Milky Way was the only cosmos. He was thirty years old when he took over the observatory in 1876.

Henritta Leavitt, at the age of 25 when she arrived as a recent grad of Radcliffe was a rather plain spinster who grew up in a large family in Lancaster, Massachusetts, as the eldest daughter of a clergyman. She was simply doing her job documenting the locations of stars from the telescope's photo plates when she made her big discovery. They were looking for changes in the sizes of the stars. In 1908, she published an account of hre work concerning the North Polar Sequence of ninety-six stars, the variables in the Magellanic Clouds. She plotted twenty-five of them on a graph with their brightness on one axis and their period on the other. Later, her results were published in a 'Harvard Circular' under the name of Edward Pickering in 1912, but he did give her credit. When my son Jeff worked at Kitt Peak in Tucson, Arizona, as a grad student at the University of Chicago, his professor took all the credit for his time spent there. Her research concluded, "In view of these facts, her measurements depend on many different methods, instruments, and observers." Our nearest known Cepheid, great variable star, is the North Star. At the Planetarian, Mr. Ferguson explains all the other lights (stars and planets) in relation to the North Star. The sun moves through the Milky Way.

In August 1912, the year of her discovery, she documented her day-to-day routine, in language meaningful only to an astronomer. "Page after page, she described how she corrected for the various biases ...there was a chain of reasoning behind every number. Each star was a project in itself. In 1968, on Christmas Eve, astronaut Frank Borman read a prayer from spacecraft Apollo 8 as they moved around the moon which was heard by millions of people around the globe. "Give us, O God, the vision which can see Thy love in the world in spite of human failure. Give us the faith to trust Thy goodness in spite of our ignorance and weakness. Give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray with understanding hearts and show us what each one of us can do to set forward t he coming of the day of universal peace." Her discovery and authority was so accurate it influenced the astronomer after whom the Hubble Space telescope is named. He discovered what appeared to be different kinds of starlight. After his death in 1953, his last assistant Allan Sandage kept up his work. Ms. Leavitt died of cancer in 1921, an unsung hero. Now, thanks to George Johnson of Santa Fe, she will be known as a woman before her time, a woman of science in a man's field.

Mr. Johnson, has written A SHORTCUT THROUGH TIME and FIRE IN THE MIND. He is a 'New York Times' science reporter.

The Peripatetic Astronomer: The Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth

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Tales of an adventuring scientist

The Peripatetic Astronomer: The Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth
Hermann Alexander Bruck
Manufacturer: Adam Hilger
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Tales of an adventuring scientist.......1997-03-22

Charles Piazzi Smyth's own writings are a passionate evocation of the life of a great Victorian gentleman scientist and explorer, and sadly very rare. Here is a chance to taste the life of one of Science's great all-rounders in a volume no less-well written than his own. Amidst the adventures you will find all the carefully researched detail you could wish for of Piazzi's pioneering experiments in remote mountaintop astronomy and Pyramid exploration. The definitive biography

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