The Sun In The Church - Couverture rigide

Heilbron, John-L

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0674854330 ISBN 13 : 9780674854338

Editeur : Harvard University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Between 1650 and 1750, four Catholic churches were the best solar observatories in the world. Built to fix an unquestionable date for Easter, they also housed instruments that threw light on the disputed geometry of the solar system, and so within sight of the alter, subverted church doctrine about the order of the universe. A tale of politically canny astronomers and cardinals with a taste for mathematics, this text tells how these observatories came to be, how they worked, and what they accomplished. It describes Galileo's political overreaching, his subsequent trial for heresy, and his slow and steady rehabilitation in the eyes of the Catholic Church. And it offers an enlightening perspective on astronomy, church history, and religious architecture, as well as an analysis of measurements testing the limits of attainable accuracy, undertaken with rudimentary means and extraordinary zeal. Above all, the book illuminates the niches protected and financed by the Catholic Church in which science and mathematics thrived.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Harvard University Press
• Date d'édition: 1999
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0674854330
• ISBN 13: 9780674854338
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 374
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Amazon EU Sarl; 0; www.amazon.com; ; 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; 0; L-1855; Luxembourg