- Book
- xliv + 616 pages
- Level: high school and above
The Dawn of Modern Cosmology, From Copernicus to Newton, edited by Aviva Rothman and published in 2023 by Penguin Books/Random House, features seventy-one illustrations and readings (English, or translations into English) from authors in “The Copernican Revolution”. These start with an illustration of the geocentric universe from Hartmann Schedel’s 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle and proceed in chronological order to James Ferguson’s 1756 Astronomy, Explained upon Sir Isaac Newton’s Principles, and Made Easy to Those Who Have Not Studied Mathematics.
New to Penguin Classics, the astonishing story of the Copernican Revolution, told through the words of the ground-breaking scientists who brought it about
In the late fifteenth century, the earth stood motionless at the center of a small, ordered cosmos. Around us, it was believed, the moon, the sun, and the planets revolved in crystalline spheres, their orbits perfect, eternally unchanging circles. Just over a century later, the sun was now the center of creation; the earth just another planet hurtling through empty, near-infinite space. This is the story of an astonishing change, a transformation in human thought, about both the universe and our place within it, told through the words of the astronomers and mathematicians at its heart. Encompassing the most evocative excerpts from the works and letters of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and others, and including guiding notes from renowned historian of science, Aviva Rothman, The Dawn of Modern Cosmology is the definitive record of one of science’s greatest achievements.
The Dawn of Modern Cosmology is a “faith and science” book in that Rothman does not steer clear of religious content in her selections. So many of these writers included religious content in their writing that the “faith and science” aspect is just naturally present. Isaac Newton speaks of the solar system clearly being God’s work. Ferguson writes of how “An undevout Astronomer is mad”, given what astronomy reveals of “the existence, wisdom, power, goodness and superintendency of the SUPREME BEING!” Johannes Kepler declares, “O telescope, much-knowing and more precious than any scepter: is not one who holds you in his right hand ordained as king and lord of the works of God?”
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
