Fictions of the Cosmos

Fictions of the Cosmos PDF Author: Frédérique Aït-Touati
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226011240
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
In today’s academe, the fields of science and literature are considered unconnected, one relying on raw data and fact, the other focusing on fiction. During the period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, however, the two fields were not so distinct. Just as the natural philosophers of the era were discovering in and adopting from literature new strategies and techniques for their discourse, so too were poets and storytellers finding inspiration in natural philosophy, particularly in astronomy. A work that speaks to the history of science and literary studies, Fictions of the Cosmos explores the evolving relationship that ensued between fiction and astronomical authority. By examining writings of Kepler, Godwin, Hooke, Cyrano, Cavendish, Fontenelle, and others, Frédérique Aït-Touati shows that it was through the telling of stories—such as through accounts of celestial journeys—that the Copernican hypothesis, for example, found an ontological weight that its geometric models did not provide. Aït-Touati draws from both cosmological treatises and fictions of travel and knowledge, as well as personal correspondences, drawings, and instruments, to emphasize the multiple borrowings between scientific and literary discourses. This volume sheds new light on the practices of scientific invention, experimentation, and hypothesis formation by situating them according to their fictional or factual tendencies.

Fictions of the Cosmos

Fictions of the Cosmos PDF Author: Frédérique Aït-Touati
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226011240
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
In today’s academe, the fields of science and literature are considered unconnected, one relying on raw data and fact, the other focusing on fiction. During the period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, however, the two fields were not so distinct. Just as the natural philosophers of the era were discovering in and adopting from literature new strategies and techniques for their discourse, so too were poets and storytellers finding inspiration in natural philosophy, particularly in astronomy. A work that speaks to the history of science and literary studies, Fictions of the Cosmos explores the evolving relationship that ensued between fiction and astronomical authority. By examining writings of Kepler, Godwin, Hooke, Cyrano, Cavendish, Fontenelle, and others, Frédérique Aït-Touati shows that it was through the telling of stories—such as through accounts of celestial journeys—that the Copernican hypothesis, for example, found an ontological weight that its geometric models did not provide. Aït-Touati draws from both cosmological treatises and fictions of travel and knowledge, as well as personal correspondences, drawings, and instruments, to emphasize the multiple borrowings between scientific and literary discourses. This volume sheds new light on the practices of scientific invention, experimentation, and hypothesis formation by situating them according to their fictional or factual tendencies.

Cosmos

Cosmos PDF Author: Witold Gombrowicz
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802195261
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Get Book Here

Book Description
A “creatively captivating and intellectually challenging” existential mystery from the great Polish author—“sly, funny, and . . . lovingly translated” (The New York Times). Winner of the 1967 International Prize for Literature Milan Kundera called Witold Gombrowicz “one of the great novelists of our century.” Now his most famous novel, Cosmos, is available in a critically acclaimed translation by the award-winning translator Danuta Borchardt. Cosmos is a metaphysical noir thriller narrated by Witold, a seedy, pathetic, and witty student, who is charming and appalling by turns. In need of a quiet place to study, Witold and his melancholy friend Fuks head to a boarding house in the mountains. Along the way, they discover a dead bird hanging from a string. Is this a strange but meaningless occurrence or is it the first clue to a sinister mystery? As the young men become embroiled in the Chekhovian travails of the family that runs the boarding house, Grombrowicz creates a gripping narrative where the reader questions who is sane and who is safe. “Probably the most important 20th-century novelist most Western readers have never heard of.” —Benjamin Paloff, Words Without Borders

Calvino's Fictions

Calvino's Fictions PDF Author: Kathryn Hume
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Throughout the novels and stories. The cosmicomical tales, with their focus on science, are seen as crucial to the development of the symbolic mindscapes that made Calvino a major international writer. He died before arriving at any satisfactory solution to the problems of relating the 'I' to the 'not-I', but Hume derives from his later works a philosophy based on the creation of likenesses, of internal microcosms that permit us to mirror the macrocosm. These interior.

Incredible Stories from Space

Incredible Stories from Space PDF Author: Nancy Atkinson
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1624143172
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Incredible Stories from Space, veteran space journalist Nancy Atkinson shares compelling insights from over 35 NASA scientists and engineers, taking readers behind the scenes of the unmanned missions that are transforming our understanding of the solar system and beyond. Weaving together one-on-one interviews along with the extraordinary sagas of the spacecraft themselves, this book chronicles the struggles and triumphs of nine current space missions and captures the true spirit of exploration and discovery.

Cosmos

Cosmos PDF Author: Ralph Milne Farley
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781508676935
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The epic round-robin science fiction space adventure serial by 18 sci-fi authors. The Solar System is being invaded and the inhabitants of the planets set forth in space-ships to thwart the invasion.

Genesis of the Cosmos

Genesis of the Cosmos PDF Author: Paul A. LaViolette
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Co
ISBN: 9781591430346
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Get Book Here

Book Description
Paul LaViolette reveals astonishing parallels between cutting edge scientific thought and early creation myths, and how these myths encode a theory of cosmology in which matter is continually growing from seeds of order that emerge spontaneously from chaos. Exposing the contradictions of the Big Bang theory, LaViolette leads us beyond the restrictive metaphors of modern science and into a new science for the 21st century.

Literature and Science

Literature and Science PDF Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780918024855
Category : Literature and science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos PDF Author: Brian Greene
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307428532
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 594

Get Book Here

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes “an astonishing ride” through the universe (The New York Times) that makes us look at reality in a completely different way. Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the most mysterious of concepts. Is space an entity? Why does time have a direction? Could the universe exist without space and time? Can we travel to the past? Greene has set himself a daunting task: to explain non-intuitive, mathematical concepts like String Theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Inflationary Cosmology with analogies drawn from common experience. From Newton’s unchanging realm in which space and time are absolute, to Einstein’s fluid conception of spacetime, to quantum mechanics’ entangled arena where vastly distant objects can instantaneously coordinate their behavior, Greene takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on an irresistible and revelatory journey to the new layers of reality that modern physics has discovered lying just beneath the surface of our everyday world.

Earth & Sky

Earth & Sky PDF Author: Ray A. Williamson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780826315533
Category : Indian astronomy
Languages : en
Pages : 307

Get Book Here

Book Description
Native American starlore has instructed and entertained non-natives for generations. Yet until recently the importance of this extensive body of tradition and acute observation has been ignored or viewed by non-natives simply as crude means to astronomical insight. In this edited collection, seventeen folklorists and astronomers consider American starlore and its relation to specific observation of the sky in terms of its native uses and interpretations. Far from being another recount of sky mythology, this is a book that relates clear descriptions of astronomical phenomena and mechanics to interpretation and ritual usage from all areas of North America. Navajo, Seneca, Alabama, Pawnee, Lakota, Apache, and other peoples are represented. Rather than focus on pristine astronomies, the contributors to this volume consider ongoing traditions and contemporary usages. A broad perspective on the exciting new field of ethnoastronomy, as well as fascinating insight into Native American wisdom.

Make the Cosmos Great Again!

Make the Cosmos Great Again! PDF Author: Vincent P Scully
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book Here

Book Description
It's 2028. Eight years earlier, blond-haired Victor Triumph had lost the American Presidential election to actor Leonardo DiCarpaccio after it was discovered that Victor Triumph was actually Julio Rumpero, an illegal alien from Honduras. But claiming the election rigged, he broke up America into four new nations, with him as President of the southern states now called the Triumphant States of America. Along with that catastrophe, coastal cities around the world were flooded by rising ocean levels, and millions of refugees needed a new home. Enter the planet Freeport, an alien world run by humans descended from an 18th century British Navy squadron, with climate change technology and vast open spaces. But when the delegates from Earth first visit Freeport, Midwest President Mark Schillings disappears into the planet's alien brothel world. Triumph calls it a kidnapping and invades, promising "No More Illegal Aliens!" Can the plucky Brits, with their ancient cannons and single shot muskets, defeat Triumph's fleet with all its modern firepower? Thankfully, Emmie Bahtia, an Olympic fencer from San Francisco arrives for a party weekend but ends up saving Wyckham and Freeport, thanks to her skills with a blade and her adept use of social media. Just like the first two books, it's another wild romp, with lots of action, humorous aliens, crude sailors, the amorous Fireflies, shocked Royal Navy officers, and a dose of modern politics-all the craziness you've come to expect in this over-the-top series. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual people is purely confidential.