John
Henry.
Moving Heaven and Earth: Copernicus and the Solar System.
Duxford: Icon Books,
2001.
Revolutions
in Science series.
iv,156pp.
Paperback ISBN
1840462515.
Publisher's
recommended price UK £5.99, Can$14.50
published by
Totem
Books in USA, $9.95
When
Nicolaus Copernicus
claimed that the Earth was not stationary at the centre of the universe
but circled the Sun, he brought about a total revolution in the
sciences
and consternation in the Church - a twin upheaval that would eventually
lead to the trial of Galileo before the Inquisition in Rome. His
astronomical
theory demanded a new physics to explain motion and force, a new theory
of space, and a completely new conception of the nature of our universe.
But
that wasn't
all. The theory that moved heaven and earth also showed for the first
time
that a common-sense view of things isn't necessarily correct, and that
mathematics - no matter how abstract it might seem - can and does
reveal
the true nature of the material world. No other single innovation could
have had the same far-reaching consequences in 16th-century society,
where
pure knowledge was thought to rest only in surviving fragments of
ancient
wisdom.
Copernius
sowed
the seed from which science has grown to be a dominant aspect of modern
culture, fundamental in shaping our understanding of the workings of
the
cosmos. In this book, John Henry not only explains how these changes
followed
upon Copernicus's theory, but also reveals why, in the first place,
Copernicus
was led to such a seemingly outrageous and implausible idea as a
swiftly
moving earth.
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