Tycho Brahe's Path to God

Tycho Brahe's Path to God PDF Author: Max Brod
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810123819
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Though best known for his editing and posthumous publication of his friend Franz Kafka's writing, Max Brod was a major novelist in his own right. Tycho Brahe's Path to God, widely considered his finest work and viewed by many as a small masterpiece, concerns the relationship between the great Danish astronomer and the younger, intellectually superior Johannes Kepler. Brod's representation of this complicated relation grew out of his acquaintance with the young Albert Einstein, reproduces his struggles with the Expressionist poet Franz Werfel, and strangely anticipates the most famous act Brod would ever perform: publishing Kafka's writings without his permission. As Brahe attempts to create a diplomatic compromise between the old Ptolemaic system of planetary motion and its modern, Copernican revision, Kepler discards the principle of compromise root and branch. Their conflict thus becomes an emblem of the struggle between a weakened tradition and a self-conscious modernity. The novel manages to convey the intimate, emotional reality of a seventeenth-century political conflict as well as the psychological, political, and artistic turmoil of Brod's own time. This revival of the richly allusive and deeply resonant Tycho Brahe's Path to God is a true literary event.

Tycho Brahe's Path to God

Tycho Brahe's Path to God PDF Author: Max Brod
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810123819
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Though best known for his editing and posthumous publication of his friend Franz Kafka's writing, Max Brod was a major novelist in his own right. Tycho Brahe's Path to God, widely considered his finest work and viewed by many as a small masterpiece, concerns the relationship between the great Danish astronomer and the younger, intellectually superior Johannes Kepler. Brod's representation of this complicated relation grew out of his acquaintance with the young Albert Einstein, reproduces his struggles with the Expressionist poet Franz Werfel, and strangely anticipates the most famous act Brod would ever perform: publishing Kafka's writings without his permission. As Brahe attempts to create a diplomatic compromise between the old Ptolemaic system of planetary motion and its modern, Copernican revision, Kepler discards the principle of compromise root and branch. Their conflict thus becomes an emblem of the struggle between a weakened tradition and a self-conscious modernity. The novel manages to convey the intimate, emotional reality of a seventeenth-century political conflict as well as the psychological, political, and artistic turmoil of Brod's own time. This revival of the richly allusive and deeply resonant Tycho Brahe's Path to God is a true literary event.

The Redemption of Tycho Brahe

The Redemption of Tycho Brahe PDF Author: Max Brod
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : German fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description


Einstein in Bohemia

Einstein in Bohemia PDF Author: Michael D. Gordin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691203822
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
"Though Einstein is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the history of modern science, he was in many respects marginal. Despite being one of the creators of quantum theory, he remained skeptical of it, and his major research program while in Princeton--the quest for a unified field--ultimately failed. In this book, Michael Gordin explores this paradox in Einstein's life by concentrating on a brief and often overlooked interlude: his tenure as professor of physics in Prague, from April of 1911 to the summer of 1912. Though often dismissed by biographers and scholars, it was a crucial year for Einstein both personally and scientifically: his marriage deteriorated, he began thinking seriously about his Jewish identity for the first time, he attempted a new explanation for gravitation-which though it failed had a significant impact on his later work-and he met numerous individuals, including Max Brod, Hugo Bergmann, Philipp Frank, and Arnošt Kolman, who would continue to influence him. In a kind of double-biography of the figure and the city, this book links Prague and Einstein together. Like the man, the city exhibits the same paradox of being both central and marginal to the main contours of European history. It was to become the capital of the Czech Republic but it was always, compared to Vienna and Budapest, less central in the Habsburg Empire. Moreover, it was home to a lively Germanophone intellectual and artistic scene, thought the vast majority of its population spoke only Czech. By emphasizing the marginality and the centrality of both Einstein and Prague, Gordin sheds new light both on Einstein's life and career and on the intellectual and scientific life of the city in the early twentieth century"--

Heavenly Intrigue

Heavenly Intrigue PDF Author: Joshua Gilder
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1400031761
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Heavenly Intrigue is the fascinating, true account of the seventeenth-century collaboration between Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe that revolutionized our understanding of the universe–and ended in murder.One of history’s greatest geniuses, Kepler laid the foundations of modern physics with his revolutionary laws of planetary motion. But his beautiful mind was beset by demons. Born into poverty and abuse, half-blinded by smallpox, he festered with rage, resentment, and a longing for worldly fame. Brahe, his mentor, was a flamboyant aristocrat who had spent forty years mapping the heavens with unprecedented accuracy–but he refused to share his data with Kepler. With Brahe’s untimely death in Prague in 1601, rumors flew across Europe that he had been murdered. But it took twentieth-century forensics to uncover the poison in his remains, and the detective work of Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder to identify the prime suspect–the ambitious, envy-ridden Kepler himself. A fast-paced, true-life account that reads like a thriller, Heavenly Intrigue is a remarkable feat of historical re-creation.

Prague in Black and Gold

Prague in Black and Gold PDF Author: Peter Demetz
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780809016099
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
" ... Demetz begins with the intriguing myths about Prague's origins--told and retold by generations of artists--contrasting them with confirmed archaeological truths about the site's pre-Roman settlements. He weaves together the colorful strands of Prague's literary traditions (Latin, Czech, German, and Jewish) with the story of its scintillating political and cultural advances, and focuses on key moments in its multicultural life: under King Charles, when it was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire; in the turbulent years of the Hussite rebellion; under Emperor Rudolf II, during the Renaissance, when it was home to Europe's best rationalists and most famous occultists; in the time of Mozart; and in the ages of revolutionary nationalism and of T.G. Masaryk, heroic first president of Czechoslovakia. Throughout, Demetz shows how Czechs, Germans, Italians, and Jews hve lived and worked together in Prague for a thousand years ..."--Jacket.

The Making of Copernicus

The Making of Copernicus PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004281126
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
The contributions to Making of Copernicus examine exemplarily how some of the Copernicus myths came about and if they could hold their ground or have vanished again. Are there links between a factual or postulated transformation of world images and the application of certain scientific metaphors, especially the metaphor of a revolution? Were there interactions and amalgamations of the literary and scientific enthronement, or outlawry of Copernicus and if so, how did they take place? On the other hand, are there repercussions of the scientific-historical reconstructions and hagiographies on the literary image of Copernicus as sketched by novelists even in the 20th century? The history of the reception of Copernicus shall not be dominantly dealt with from the point of view of a factual affirmation and rejection of the astronomer and his doctrine but rather as accomplishments of transformation respectively. Thus, the essays in this volume investigate transformations: methodological, institutional, textual, and visual transformations of the Copernican doctrine and the topical, rhetorical and literary transformations of the historical person of Copernicus respectively.

The Golem Returns

The Golem Returns PDF Author: Cathy S. Gelbin
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472117599
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Exploring the role of the golem in the formation of modern Jewish culture

Kafka, Zionism, and Beyond

Kafka, Zionism, and Beyond PDF Author: Mark H. Gelber
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110934191
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This volume contains the lectures delivered at an international conference in Israel devoted to the topic of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and Zionism. Kafka's interests in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Jewish Nationalism and his various relationships to his Zionist friends and his participation in Jewish national and Zionist-related activity are explored from a number of different critical vantage points. Likewise, his writings are considered within the specific framework of Jewish nationalism and Zionism.

The Life Fantastic

The Life Fantastic PDF Author: Noa Menhaim
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1786786699
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Explore the sprawling network of culture to discover the incredible ways in which ideas connect to shape the world we see today. These mind-blowing essays dig down to the roots of stories, myths and literary genres, travelling from art to politics to history to folklore, and from high to popular culture and back again. Through an intricate web of sidenotes, embark on a voyage of discovery from the unluckiest book ever made to Viking horned helmets to the sex life of vampires …. or from mermaids frolicking in the margins to the ancient Amazons to the power of Amazon and on to Utopia and Atlantis … This is western culture as you’ve never seen it before.

The Möbius Strip Topology

The Möbius Strip Topology PDF Author: Klaus Möbius
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000522407
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 926

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Book Description
In the 19th century, pure mathematics research reached a climax in Germany, and Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) was an epochal example. August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868) was his doctoral student whose work was profoundly influenced by him. In the 18th century, it had been mostly the French school of applied mathematics that enabled the rapid developments of science and technology in Europe. How could this shift happen? It can be argued that the major reasons were the devastating consequences of the Napoleonic Wars in Central Europe, leading to the total defeat of Prussia in 1806. Immediately following, far-reaching reforms of the entire state system were carried out in Prussia and other German states, also affecting the educational system. It now guaranteed freedom of university teaching and research. This attracted many creative people with new ideas enabling the “golden age” of pure mathematics and fundamental theory in physical sciences. Möbius’ legacy reaches far into today’s sciences, arts, and architecture. The famous one-sided Möbius strip is a paradigmatic example of the ongoing fascination with mathematical topology. This is the first book to present numerous detailed case studies on Möbius topology in science and the humanities. It is written for those who believe in the power of ideas in our culture, experts and laymen alike.