The Copernican Question

The Copernican Question PDF Author: Robert Westman
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520355695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 702

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Book Description
In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus publicly defended his hypothesis that the earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the center of a finite universe. But why did Copernicus make this bold proposal? And why did it matter? The Copernican Question reframes this pivotal moment in the history of science, centering the story on a conflict over the credibility of astrology that erupted in Italy just as Copernicus arrived in 1496. Copernicus engendered enormous resistance when he sought to protect astrology by reconstituting its astronomical foundations. Robert S. Westman shows that efforts to answer the astrological skeptics became a crucial unifying theme of the early modern scientific movement. His interpretation of this long sixteenth century, from the 1490s to the 1610s, offers a new framework for understanding the great transformations in natural philosophy in the century that followed.

The Copernican Question

The Copernican Question PDF Author: Robert Westman
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520355695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 702

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus publicly defended his hypothesis that the earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the center of a finite universe. But why did Copernicus make this bold proposal? And why did it matter? The Copernican Question reframes this pivotal moment in the history of science, centering the story on a conflict over the credibility of astrology that erupted in Italy just as Copernicus arrived in 1496. Copernicus engendered enormous resistance when he sought to protect astrology by reconstituting its astronomical foundations. Robert S. Westman shows that efforts to answer the astrological skeptics became a crucial unifying theme of the early modern scientific movement. His interpretation of this long sixteenth century, from the 1490s to the 1610s, offers a new framework for understanding the great transformations in natural philosophy in the century that followed.

Copernicus and the Astrologers

Copernicus and the Astrologers PDF Author: Robert S. Westman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780981950082
Category : Astrology, European
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description


Before Copernicus

Before Copernicus PDF Author: Rivka Feldhay
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773550119
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
In 1984, Noel Swerdlow and Otto Neugebauer argued that Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) explained planetary motion by using mathematical devices and astronomical models originally developed by Islamic astronomers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Was this a parallel development, or did Copernicus somehow learn of the work of his predecessors, and if so, how? And if Copernicus did use material from the Islamic world, how then should we understand the European context of his innovative cosmology? Although Copernicus’s work has been subject to a number of excellent studies, there has been little attention paid to the sources and diverse cultures that might have inspired him. Foregrounding the importance of interactions between Islamic and European astronomers and philosophers, Before Copernicus explores the multi-cultural, multi-religious, and multi-lingual context of learning on the eve of the Copernican revolution, determining the relationship between Copernicus and his predecessors. Essays by Christopher Celenza and Nancy Bisaha delve into the European cultural and intellectual contexts of the fifteenth century, revealing both the profound differences between “them” and “us,” and the nascent attitudes that would mark the turn to modernity. Michael Shank, F. Jamil Ragep, Sally Ragep, and Robert Morrison depict the vibrant and creative work of astronomers in the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish worlds. In other essays, Rivka Feldhay, Raz Chen-Morris, and Edith Sylla demonstrate the importance of shifting outlooks that were critical for the emergence of a new worldview. Highlighting the often-neglected intercultural exchange between Islam and early modern Europe, Before Copernicus reimagines the scientific revolution in a global context.

Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World

Astronomy and Astrology in the Islamic World PDF Author: Stephen P. Blake
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748649115
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
It was the astronomers and mathematicians of the Islamic world who provided the theories and concepts that paved the way from the geocentric theories of Claudius Ptolemy in the second century AD to the heliocentric breakthroughs of Nicholas Copernicus and Johannes Kepler in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Algebra, the Arabic numeral system, and trigonometry: all these and more originated in the Muslim East and undergirded an increasingly accurate and sophisticated understanding of the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets. This nontechnical overview of the Islamic advances in the heavenly sciences allows the general reader to appreciate (for the first time) the absolutely crucial role that Muslim scientists played in the overall development of astronomy and astrology in the Eurasian world.

A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data

A Scheme of Heaven: The History of Astrology and the Search for our Destiny in Data PDF Author: Alexander Boxer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039363485X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
An illuminating look at the surprising history and science of astrology, civilization’s first system of algorithms, from Babylon to the present day. Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is the universe’s grandest pattern-matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world’s most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a monumental data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history’s most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler. Thousands of years ago, astrologers became the first to stumble upon the powerful storytelling possibilities inherent in numerical data. To correlate the configurations of the cosmos with our day-to-day lives, astrologers relied upon a “scheme of heaven,” or horoscope, showing the precise configuration of the planets at a particular instant in time as viewed from a particular place on Earth. Although recognized as pseudoscience today, horoscopes were once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Boxer teaches us how to read these esoteric charts—and appreciate the complex astronomical calculations needed to generate them—by diagramming how the heavens appeared at important moments in astrology’s history, from the assassination of Julius Caesar as viewed from Rome to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as seen from the surface of the Moon. He then puts these horoscopes to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore. By looking back at the algorithms of ancient astrology, he suggests, we can better recognize the patterns that are timeless characteristics of our own pattern-matching tendencies. At once critical, rigorous, and far ranging, A Scheme of Heaven recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project—spanning continents and centuries—that foreshadowed our data-driven world today.

Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus PDF Author: Owen Gingerich
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195161734
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
A brief biography of Nicolaus Copernicus, the doctor, lawyer, and church official who developed the theory that the planets revolved around the sun, and includes information on his early life, and the events that lead to his discovery.

The Fated Sky

The Fated Sky PDF Author: Benson Bobrick
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743268954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
'The Fated Sky' looks at famous figures and important historical events that were influenced by astrology.

A History of Horoscopic Astrology

A History of Horoscopic Astrology PDF Author: James H. Holden
Publisher: American Federation of Astr
ISBN: 0866904638
Category : Astrology
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
This thoroughly researched book is a history of the development of Western horoscopic astrology from its origin among the Babylonians and its subsequent creation in its present form by the Alexandrians down to modern times. Special attention is given to background history and to the working conditions and techniques used by astrologers during the last two thousand years. Numerous footnotes provide additional information and bibliographic references. A separate bibliography lists reference sources of particular importance. Two comprehensive indices containing more than 2,800 individual entries enable the reader to locate persons, publishers, topics, and book and periodical titles that are mentioned in the history. The book also contains discussions of several questions and topics relating to astrology. James Herschel Holden is Research Director of the American Federation of Astrologers and has been especially interested in the history of astrology.

Soul Signs

Soul Signs PDF Author: Diane Eichenbaum
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684823667
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Your sun sign both describes your basic nature and holds the key to the lessons you must learn in this lifetime. Expert astrologer and teacher Diane Eichenbaum shows you how your birth sign reveals your personal path to spiritual and psychological transformation.

Hellenistic Astronomy

Hellenistic Astronomy PDF Author: Alan C. Bowen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004400567
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 783

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Book Description
In Hellenistic Astronomy: The Science in Its Contexts, renowned scholars address questions about what the ancient science of the heavens was and the numerous contexts in which it was pursued.