Review
"I hope that somewhere along the line I get to see a comet that really turns me on. Things haven't gone well so far. True, when the comet of the century is announced every few years I dash out to the backyard and boggle through my binoculars like everyone else, but even when I actually succeed in finding the damn thing I'm never really overcome by much more than ennul... Anyway, I see we're off again after the latest comet of the century. It involves nothing less than 'what may well become the largest campaign in the history of modern astronomy.' Moreover, 'the event could have been the most spectacular astronomical event ever to be witnessed in the heavens during recorded history.' (Comet people talk like that.)" - from Setting Sail for the Universe
Product Description
This collection brings together 28 of Fernie's "Marginalia" columns from "American Scientist" magazine. Published between 1985 and 2001, the articles focus on the history of astronomy, bringing life to many of the people who have sought to explain what we observe above us in the night sky. Fernie recounts the remarkable tales of human adventures, struggle and follies behind some well-known and lesser-known scientific conquests of the past few centuries, such as the contentious discovery of Neptune and the misguided search for Vulcan, a proposed planet between the Sun and Mercury. Several of the articles focus on the characters themselves, such as Edmond Halley of Halley's comet fame, or the obscure Jeremiah Horrocks, who made the first realistic determination of the distance from the Sun to the Earth, as well as a pre-Newtonian suggestion of the existence of an attractive force now known as gravity.
