A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel (PDF)

Description

By 1514, the reclusive cleric Nicolaus Copernicus had written and hand-copied an initial outline of his heliocentric theory-in which he defied common sense and received wisdom to place the sun, not the earth, at the center of our universe, and set the earth spinning among the other planets. Over the next two decades, Copernicus expanded his theory through hundreds of observations, while compiling in secret a book-length manuscript that tantalized mathematicians and scientists throughout Europe. For fear of ridicule, he refused to publish.In 1539, a young German mathematician, Georg Joachim Rheticus, drawn by rumors of a revolution to rival the religious upheaval of Martin Luther’s Reformation, traveled to Poland to seek out Copernicus. Two years later, the Protestant youth took leave of his aging Catholic mentor and arranged to have Copernicus’s manuscript published, in 1543, as De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres)-the book that forever changed humankind’s place in the universe.In her elegant, compelling style, Dava Sobel chronicles, as nobody has, the conflicting personalities and extraordinary discoveries that shaped the Copernican Revolution. At the heart of the book is her play And the Sun Stood Still, imagining Rheticus’s struggle to convince Copernicus to let his manuscript see the light of day. As she achieved with her bestsellers Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, Sobel expands the bounds of narration, giving us an unforgettable portrait of scientific achievement, and of the ever-present tensions between science and faith.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Ms. Sobel is an elegant stylist, a riveting and efficient storyteller, a writer who can bring the dustiest of subjects to full-blooded life — poignant, in the case of Galileo; cautious but also loving, loyal and feisty in the case of Copernicus.” —Katherine Bouton, New York Times”Lively, inventive…a masterly specimen of close-range cultural history. Ms. Sobel certainly brings Copernicus to life, perhaps better than any other author. Ms. Sobel presents a thoroughly researched and eminently readable account of a major scientist who celebrated the sun yet lurks in the shadows.” – The Wall Street Journal”Dava Sobel describes [Copernicus’s] life and his legacy in her enjoyable “A More Perfect Heaven”…[A] delightful immersion into tumultuous times…All this history is just the background for the heart of Sobel’s book: the meeting of the aged Copernicus with the young German mathematician Georg Joachim Rheticus, who had heard of Copernicus’s ideas and traveled to Poland for a first-hand account. Rheticus stayed, helped Copernicus finish his treatise and, four years later, shepherded it through its first printing…We’ll never know precisely how Rheticus convinced Copernicus to finally set it all in print, but, as Sobel shows, we certainly owe him gratitude, for these manuscripts are treasures of our world, tracing our first steps out into an understandable cosmos.” –Mike Brown, Washington Post “The new work by science writer Dava Sobel, author of “Longitude” (1995) and “Galileo’s Daughter” (2000) is half-narrative, half-drama — and it’s all enthralling, all illuminating. As in her previous bestselling books, Sobel… turns the history of science into a great story filled with fascinating characters, excruciating near-misses and the sudden splendor of the new discovery…A More Perfect Heaven is the story of how a young German mathematician named Rhetiucs finally persuaded Copernicus to publish his outlandish theory. Their relationship is the energizing spark of Sobel’s book…Her two-act play “And the Sun Stood Still” is included in A More Perfect Heaven, and it puts flesh on the long-dissolved bones of these historical figures…Sobel, who was writer-in-residence at the U. of C. in 2006, writes with a calm authority and a deep knowledge that never tip into condescension to the lay reader. The haunting final paragraph of this beautiful book, combining science and a sort of poetic awe, is emblematic of her work as a whole.” –Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune”Like Rumpelstiltskin, Dava Sobel seems able to spin gold out of straw. She has made best-sellers out of two unlikely subjects: the history of longitude and the life of Galileo’s daughter…Sobel goes beyond conjecture, which a historian may not, and instead takes conjecture in hand as a playwright can. The center of her book is a fictional two-act play — “And the Sun Stood Still”…It’s absorbing and very well-written, and dramatically very effective. And very effective historically, too…The gripe most of us history lovers have with historical fiction is that it imagines too much, reaches too far. Sobel’s dramatization gives immediacy to an historical account made up, as much of history is, by peripheral documents — rent transactions, correspondence about local coin values, written in the formalistic and impersonal style of the day…Sobel will have another of her improbable best-sellers, I predict, in this story of how Copernicus went to press — a further example of how an author’s wit, intelligence, good grace and imagination can find gold in the most unlikely places.” –David Walton, Kansas City Star “The wonderful detail and eloquent writing that Sobel demonstrated in her best-selling Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter carry the reader along here too. Given what she has chosen to include, the book is first rate…A More Perfect Heaven is a charming and accurate book…[T]his carefully constructed biography leaves space for those of us probing the origins of heliocentrism to defend our speculations.” —Owen Gingerich, Nature “Sobel characteristically gives us the man in full…[she] tells her story fluently.” – Financial Times”However readers respond to Sobel’s unorthodox addition, her account of Copernicus’ life nicely balances personal details and such historical forces that knocked Copernicus around as the Reformation and the Teutonic Knights. Sobel’s latest assiduously researched, humanistic biography may prove irresistible to history-of-science fans.”—Booklist “Delivered with her usual stylistic grace (and here, a touch of astrological whimsy), Sobel’s gamble largely succeeds in bringing Copernicus and his intellectually and religiously tumultuous time alive.”—Publishers Weekly “A book on science and personality that should intrigue us all.”—Library Journal “A liquid entertainment of choice passages on the thoughts and deeds of Copernicus.”—Kirkus Reviews “A refreshingly fast-paced account of the life of Nicolaus Copernicus. ‘A More Perfect Heaven’ does a good job of giving the flavor of life in Reformation-era Europe…an excellent book.” – The Economist”As a colorful, singular history, Sobel’s narrative doesn’t disappoint. But her most surprising and satisfying turn is the two act play, ‘And the Sun Stood Still’” – Men’s Journal About the Author Dava Sobel is the acclaimed author of the internationally bestselling titles Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, The Illustrated Longitude, and The Planets. She lives in East Hampton, New York.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐If would be fair to say that Nicolaus Copernicus was the Albert Einstein of his time – in fact, what Copernicus was asking the world to accept was even more radical than what Einstein proposed with his theory of relativity, which challenged centuries of entrenched Newtonian physics.Shortly after Einstein’s relativity went public, the New York Times pounced. An editorial said Einstein’s theory was: “Certainly a fiction.” That was mild compared to what greeted Copernicus.More than 500 years ago when the intellectual world got wind of Copernicus’s heliocentric model featuring an earth that was not only spinning on its axis, but hurling through space — it simply defied common sense!People said things like: “Would not birds get lost after they flew off their nests? If the earth spun away from under them while they were in the air, how would they find their way back?”It seemed the most fundamental notion of common observation: The earth was solid underfoot, did not appear to be moving, no motion could be felt or observed – a spinning, orbiting earth? Ridiculous!And what about the sacred scripture of the Bible!This is what makes the Copernican Revolution still so incredibly breathtaking to this day. It was a monumental leap – a major paradigm shattering event – against seemingly impossible odds.Imagine the man, the fabulous, disciplined mind, that could make such a thing happen! It was Copernicus!For me, the stunning nature of what Copernicus achieved — the feeling of it — is not captured or conveyed in this book. Dava Sobel has given us a lot of interesting facts, but failed to impart a sense of wonder.I must also say: I agree with other critics here on Amazon who have taken Sobel harshly to task for including her three act play to fill the middle third of this book – a disastrous decision both on her part, and that of her editors. The latter should have talked her out of it. The play is a drag. I think it fails to capture the spirit of the man, and the texture of the times.That’s why this book earns just three stars from me, rather than five.Even so, I dock the two stars with some reluctance because this is otherwise a fascinating book from which I learned things about Copernicus that I did not know before – and I have admired Copernicus and read about him since I became an obsessive amateur astronomer almost 50 years ago.I became a die-hard fan of Dava Sobel after I read her “Galileo’s Daughter,” one of the best books I have read in 10 years. When I saw Sobel had turned her brilliant historian’s eye on the mighty Copernicus, I couldn’t wait to buy a copy and read.The first third and the last third are indeed absorbing and fascinating. I give Sobel enormous credit for crafting an often intimate narrative of the life of Copernicus, considering what must be an agonizing lack of available historical documentation. So much of what we might know about Copernicus has been lost – especially the biography written by Copernicus’s only student, the brilliant but tragic Georg Joachim Rheticus.I live for the day – if it might ever happen – that some discovery is made of Rheticus’s biography of his master in some ancient back room, museum or library.But Sobel could have done so much more with what was one of the most amazing, tumultuous times in history. Consider that Copernicus was about 19 or 20 years old when Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, and the shock waves this sent across Europe. It’s not mentioned in this book. It was also Copernican science that drove the final stake into the heart of feudalism – sure, feudalism was all but dead by 1500, but the Copernican universe made sure it would stay dead. (Many scholars have also offered that it was The Copernican system that provided the fuel to end feudalism of Japan! No mention of that either).Then there’s the overarching societal effects of calendar reform, the death blow it delivered to the Dark Ages in general, the amazing confluence of the Protestant Revolution — all of this gets short shrift – in favor of pages padded with a bland theatrical play that just had to discuss the homosexual predilections of Rheticus and Copernicus’s relationship with his concubine.Again, the first third and last third of this book are a tantalizing and absorbing peek into the life of one of the most consequential men ever to live – and makes this book worth the price. I recommend you buy it.But, as it stands, A More Perfect Heaven represents a missed opportunity to provide the reader with a more comprehensive look at a time when the entire spiritual and psychological universe of humankind changed in a fundamental way – and what it still means to all of us today.

⭐Davia Sobel is a superlative producer of short but highly illuminating examinations of the history of science and scientists. A More Perfect Heaven is a study of Nicolaus Copernicus and his revolutionary theory, and it deserves equal plaudits with her earlier Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter.Copernicus is now a Polish national hero, but during his lifetime his nationality was often uncertain. He spent all or nearly all of his life within the borders of modern Poland, but in those days that meant he lived partly under the rule of the Polish king and partly under that of several German and Polish dukes and princes. He lived in a period of turmoil as the Protestant Reformation challenged the Roman Catholic Church and as warfare swept back and forth across Europe. But one of the most important conflicts had most of its origins within Copernicus’ own head: the rise of the heliocentric theory, in which the Earth and planets orbited the Sun, to challenge the established geocentric theory in which the Earth was the center of the universe.This was not just a scientific debate, the argument between heliocentrism and geocentrism appeared to shake the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church and Christianity, as well as centuries of accepted and approved scientific belief. Copernicus himself was a Catholic canon who depended on the good graces of various bishops in order to keep his position. For years while he worked out the details of what he was certain was the truth Copernicus kept his work a secret, and it was not until he was in his final years that a younger man convinced him to publish his theories using the new printing press technology. Controversy over his theory swirled at once and continued to do so after Copernicus’ death as other astronomers like Tycho and Kepler and Galileo added details in support of heliocentrism. The Catholic Church placed Copernicus’ writings and those of some of his supporters in the Index, where they remained for some 300 years.Sobel’s superb recreation of Copernicus’ life and the world in which he lived makes A More Perfect Heaven a pleasure to read. Besides the usual elegant writing and the keen eye for a telling anecdote which we have come to expect from Sobel, there is an additional attraction in the form of a play depicting Copernicus’ relationship with his collaborator Rheticus. I thoroughly enjoyed A More Perfect Heaven and intend to reread it many times.

⭐Great book arrived very quickly from the USA, exactly as described. Perfect, thank you.

⭐Great writing on a subject that is badly understood. The best part is not the science, but the way Sobel is able to transport you to the Germany of the 17th century. A must read for science & history buffs. Aleda

⭐Fascinating and well-written

Keywords

Free Download A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos in PDF format
A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos PDF Free Download
Download A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos 2011 PDF Free
A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos 2011 PDF Free Download
Download A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos PDF
Free Download Ebook A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos