| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Energetic, piquant, and contextually rich. . . . Vollmann writes with vigor and poetic insight about the evolution of science.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
In 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus lay on his deathbed, his just-published masterpiece On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in his hands. At that time, religious doctrine and common sense dictated that the earth ruled the universe, with the sun, moon, planets, and stars all rotating around it. By putting the sun at the center of that cosmology, his book fomented another kind of revolution-a scientific one-that would lead to a completely new view of the universe, and humanity's place in it. As contemporary cosmologists explore the universe's vastness and the nearly insignificant role we play in it, the repercussions from Copernicus's radical step continue to resound. With the energetic prose and powerful intelligence for which he is known, William T. Vollmann provides an enlightening and readable explication not only of Copernicus's book but also of Copernicus's epoch, and the momentous clash between the two.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I agree with the Mr. Birkwood. The prose style (much of which is in parenthesis) is unreadable which is a shame as the subject matter is fascinating.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I borrowed this book from my local lending library and I'm sorry I did. The writing is confused, the man makes up words and he introduces us to his personal politics. None of which are necessary in this type of book. I find his reasoning unclear and his prose style self-indulgent at best; at worst he is obscure through trying to be clever.
At points I couldn't decide if he thought Copernicus a genius or an idiot.
At points I couldn't decide if he thought Copernicus a genius or an idiot.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful
revolution #1
24 Feb 2006
Format:Hardcover
It's interesting that so many of the defining moments in history involved Uncentering something from something else. For instance, Thomas Willis realized that the seat of reason and intelligence was neither the heart nor the soul, but a lump of jelly in the skull. Darwin first figured out that the homo sapiens is just one twig in the tree of life. And before Willis and Darwin there was Copernicus, who is credited with discovering that the Earth, far from being the center of the universe, revolves around the sun along with all the other planets.
There's something about human psychology that resists Uncentering, and back then the gecocentrists had mountains of religious and philosophical text to back them up. Needless to say heliocentrism was an unpopular idea, and in 16th century Europe people with unpopular ideas were burned along with their books. Copernicus was spared this fate, partly because of an apologetic (and unauthorized) preface, and partly by the fact that he died of natural causes shortly after the publication of his book in 1543. Copernicus's successors, Bruno and Galileo, ended up taking a lot of the flak.
William T. Vollmann is an excellent writer, and he does a fabulous job of summarizing Revolutions. Using limited astro-jargon and a few figures, Vollmann explains how Copernicus calculated the positions and trajectories of the planets, often arriving quite close to modern estimates without the benefit of a telescope or even binoculars. He also describes how Copernicus had to grapple with the prevalent Ptolemaic system and its philosophical roots. Remarkably, Copernicus, despite his revolutionary worldview, could never bring himself to abandon the philosophical tradition that valued circles for their asthetic appeal. His heliocentric system thus featured circular orbits, and was consequently almost as complicated as Ptolemy's geocentric model. It would be another 50 years before Kepler cleaned up the mess by introducing elliptical orbits to the heliocentric model.
In the end Copernicus was successful in uncentering the Earth. This was a real breakthrough, and not just because he was right about heliocentrism. The Uncentered viewpoint is just the idea that things in the universe can be studied objectively and empirically, without recourse to mysticism. Today we just call it science.
There's something about human psychology that resists Uncentering, and back then the gecocentrists had mountains of religious and philosophical text to back them up. Needless to say heliocentrism was an unpopular idea, and in 16th century Europe people with unpopular ideas were burned along with their books. Copernicus was spared this fate, partly because of an apologetic (and unauthorized) preface, and partly by the fact that he died of natural causes shortly after the publication of his book in 1543. Copernicus's successors, Bruno and Galileo, ended up taking a lot of the flak.
William T. Vollmann is an excellent writer, and he does a fabulous job of summarizing Revolutions. Using limited astro-jargon and a few figures, Vollmann explains how Copernicus calculated the positions and trajectories of the planets, often arriving quite close to modern estimates without the benefit of a telescope or even binoculars. He also describes how Copernicus had to grapple with the prevalent Ptolemaic system and its philosophical roots. Remarkably, Copernicus, despite his revolutionary worldview, could never bring himself to abandon the philosophical tradition that valued circles for their asthetic appeal. His heliocentric system thus featured circular orbits, and was consequently almost as complicated as Ptolemy's geocentric model. It would be another 50 years before Kepler cleaned up the mess by introducing elliptical orbits to the heliocentric model.
In the end Copernicus was successful in uncentering the Earth. This was a real breakthrough, and not just because he was right about heliocentrism. The Uncentered viewpoint is just the idea that things in the universe can be studied objectively and empirically, without recourse to mysticism. Today we just call it science.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
The Universe Screams
20 July 2007
Format:Hardcover
I completely understand the negative reviews this book has received. But I would like to defend this book, which I believe is worth the time and effort.
This is a disappointing book if you are reading it for the wrong reason. The wrong reason is if you are reading this book as an astronomy buff who wants to learn more about Copernicus. Again, that is a very understandable mistake to make. By all appearances, it looks to be a serious academic discussion of the work of Copernicus and its role in the scientific paradigm shift.
The right reason to read this book is not as an astronomy buff but as a William T. Vollman buff. I can't get enough of Vollman's writing. And he can't seem to stop writing so it's a good match (this is a writer, for example, who has completed an over 3,000 page essay on the nature of violence). Vollman has the gift of being able to encompass the full depth of the human experience in every sentence he writes. When he writes of ecstatic happiness, he manages to imbed it with hints of cruelty and suffering. When he writes about tragedy and death, there are twisted traces of sweetness and cathartic joy.
I'm a fan of the history of science and good science writing too. And while this book might not be the most straightforward way to learn about Copernicus, there is factual information here about Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres." We are also given Vollman's meditations on the nature of scientific revolutions and the way science as a process will always be hampered by human imperfection, by our individual investments in our beliefs, and by the stubborn drag of institutional momentum. "'Revolutions' was profoundly dangerous in its epoch, and hence profoundly necessary."
Why would Vollman take on this task? He tells us this book is the result of an "exercise in explicating a subject slightly beyond my intellectual competence." But, when he marvels at the effort, "the immensity of the force required" and the "solitary years" behind Copernicus' work, we get a sense of the parallel process driving Vollman's own desires to nudge the universe.
This is a disappointing book if you are reading it for the wrong reason. The wrong reason is if you are reading this book as an astronomy buff who wants to learn more about Copernicus. Again, that is a very understandable mistake to make. By all appearances, it looks to be a serious academic discussion of the work of Copernicus and its role in the scientific paradigm shift.
The right reason to read this book is not as an astronomy buff but as a William T. Vollman buff. I can't get enough of Vollman's writing. And he can't seem to stop writing so it's a good match (this is a writer, for example, who has completed an over 3,000 page essay on the nature of violence). Vollman has the gift of being able to encompass the full depth of the human experience in every sentence he writes. When he writes of ecstatic happiness, he manages to imbed it with hints of cruelty and suffering. When he writes about tragedy and death, there are twisted traces of sweetness and cathartic joy.
I'm a fan of the history of science and good science writing too. And while this book might not be the most straightforward way to learn about Copernicus, there is factual information here about Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres." We are also given Vollman's meditations on the nature of scientific revolutions and the way science as a process will always be hampered by human imperfection, by our individual investments in our beliefs, and by the stubborn drag of institutional momentum. "'Revolutions' was profoundly dangerous in its epoch, and hence profoundly necessary."
Why would Vollman take on this task? He tells us this book is the result of an "exercise in explicating a subject slightly beyond my intellectual competence." But, when he marvels at the effort, "the immensity of the force required" and the "solitary years" behind Copernicus' work, we get a sense of the parallel process driving Vollman's own desires to nudge the universe.
29 of 36 people found the following review helpful
save your money and time
16 Jun 2006
Format:Hardcover
If you are interested in what Copernicus did, save your money and time and don't buy this book. Instead, get ahold of Thomas Kuhn's masterful account "The Copernican Revolution".
This book is one of a series in which non-scientists present popular accounts of mostly great episodes in science. I say mostly great because there seems to be a certain amount of political correctness in the choice of scientists to write about in the series. But I digress.
Some of the books in this series are successful, for example the one by Madison Smartt Bell on Priestley, Lavoisier, and the chemical revolution. But when you have fiction writers expounding technical subjects, there is potential for trouble, and that is what we get with Vollmann's book on Copernicus.
Vollmann's explanations of the technical aspects of Copernicus' work are superficial and hard to grasp. Kuhn is much better. Vollmann also has a complusion to say snotty things about everyone involved, about their thoughts, motives, habits of mind. One would think that the ancients who constructed early science and astronomy were a bunch of idiots who had to wait for Copernicus to come along, who of course was a dolt because he was "obedient" to Aristotle for the most part, and was incapable of writing clearly to boot. Kuhn is incomparably better at explaining the philsophical, religious, scientific, and historical contexts in which the ancients, Copernicus, and the other early moderns worked. For example, you get a real sense of why the ancient earth-centered system was the reasonable system, that the ancient heliocentric precursors of Copernicus didn't have much in the way of evidence or reason on their side. You get a sense from Kuhn of just what it was that made the heliocentric theory attractive to Copernicus -- the changing context of observational astronomy, and above all the clarity which the heliocentric view gave to the matter of the oddities of the motion of certain of the planets.
If you really want a sense of the greatness of ancient scientific thought, of ancient astronomy, of the magnificence of the accomplishment of Copernicus and his followers in the modern scientific revolution, get ahold of Kuhn's book.
This book is one of a series in which non-scientists present popular accounts of mostly great episodes in science. I say mostly great because there seems to be a certain amount of political correctness in the choice of scientists to write about in the series. But I digress.
Some of the books in this series are successful, for example the one by Madison Smartt Bell on Priestley, Lavoisier, and the chemical revolution. But when you have fiction writers expounding technical subjects, there is potential for trouble, and that is what we get with Vollmann's book on Copernicus.
Vollmann's explanations of the technical aspects of Copernicus' work are superficial and hard to grasp. Kuhn is much better. Vollmann also has a complusion to say snotty things about everyone involved, about their thoughts, motives, habits of mind. One would think that the ancients who constructed early science and astronomy were a bunch of idiots who had to wait for Copernicus to come along, who of course was a dolt because he was "obedient" to Aristotle for the most part, and was incapable of writing clearly to boot. Kuhn is incomparably better at explaining the philsophical, religious, scientific, and historical contexts in which the ancients, Copernicus, and the other early moderns worked. For example, you get a real sense of why the ancient earth-centered system was the reasonable system, that the ancient heliocentric precursors of Copernicus didn't have much in the way of evidence or reason on their side. You get a sense from Kuhn of just what it was that made the heliocentric theory attractive to Copernicus -- the changing context of observational astronomy, and above all the clarity which the heliocentric view gave to the matter of the oddities of the motion of certain of the planets.
If you really want a sense of the greatness of ancient scientific thought, of ancient astronomy, of the magnificence of the accomplishment of Copernicus and his followers in the modern scientific revolution, get ahold of Kuhn's book.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
