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Fauber, a UC-Riverside PhD student in computer science, seamlessly merges biography, history, and science in this amazing look at the four 16th-century astronomers whose work revealed the heliocentric solar system. Fauber opens with Nicolaus Copernicus, whose love for astronomy diverted him from a planned church career and led him to question whether Earth was at the center of the universe. Fauber then moves to Tycho Brahe, who built on Copernicus's work while using his royal patron's resources to build a lavish observatory. A fan letter introduced Brahe to Johannes Kepler, an eager young astronomer who would use Brahe's observational data to invent astrophysics and show that the planets traveled in elliptical orbits around the sun. Armed with Kepler's findings and his hand-built telescope, Galileo saw the moon's terrain, and the moons of Jupiter. In addition to these four figures, Fauber brings 16th-century Europe--when plagues scoured the populace, religious controversies could get one burned at the stake, and a wealthy patron made the difference between success and anonymity--to life. Rich with detail, this is an extraordinary saga of stubborn scientific curiosity, and of the first inklings of this planet's true place in the universe. Agent: Luba Ostashevsky, Ayesha Pande Literary. (Dec.) |
Reseña de Kirkus
Four scientists collaborate in the quest to understand the heavens.In the 1500s, there was scant cooperation among scholars of different countries: Books and papers were slow to travel, and great discoveries sometimes remained unrecognized for decades. Computer scientist Fauber focuses on four founding fathers of modern astronomy who sought each other out and advanced some central ideas in what was then an act of heresy. Copernicus was the forerunner in a time when "there was no place named America,' no light bulbs, no vaccines, no nationalism, no cheap steel, no secular state, no accurate clocksand almost no books." Working with such tools as he had, he advanced a thesis that boldly stated that Earth is not the center of the universe and that "all the spheres revolve around the Sun," a heliocentric notion that put him at odds with the Catholic Church in a time of schism. Figuring in the story in roughly equal measure are three other scientists who pushed the "Copernican heresy" further: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and Galileo Galilei. The story of their discoveries, aided by primitive telescopes, mathematical intuitions, and long letters back and forth, is well known; what Fauber does well is humanize these four residents of the pantheon of science. An overweening letter from Brahe to Kepler, for instance, opened the door to a personal visit, although Kepler scrawled in the margin, "Everyone loves themself!" Brahe was a strange man, though, as Fauber shows, not without reason: He had been kidnapped as a baby and raised "in splendid isolation by a boorish uncle and his coy wife"; Galileo's mother "stole from him, spied on him, and fought with Marina, mother of his children." The writing is sometimes a touch too casualGalileo, writes the author, was born "too early to see the lax republican model of Venetian government spread over Europe like jam on toast"but the story is seldom less than fascinating.A readable, enjoyable contribution to the history of science. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission. |