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Owen Gingerich
The Great Copernicus Chase
by Owen Gingerich
The Great Copernicus Chase is an anthology of anecdotes, discoveries, and controversies in the history of astronomy. The title essay in this collection, on Gingerich’s search for all existing 16th-century copies of Copernicus’ monumental De revolutionibus, is one of 36 episodes that range from “Ancient Egyptian sky magic” to Albert Einstein’s “laboratory of the mind.”
Originally he described these explorations in articles for Sky & Telescope, Scientific American, and other periodicals. They are collected here in popularly written and generously illustrated chapters that explore the origin of the zodiac, the secrets of detecting fake astrolabes, how optical astronomers beat radio astronomers in the race to discover the spiral arms of our Milky Way, and much more. The book includes bibliographic citations for those interested in probing deeper into these fascinating chapters.
Contact
- Address: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA - Email: ginger@cfa.harvard.edu
- Phone: (617) 495-7216
