Celestial Treasury: From the Music of the Spheres to the Conquest of Space

by Marc Lachièze-Rey , Jean-Pierre Luminet , Translated by Joe Laredo

• ISBN13: 9780521800402
• ISBN10: 0521800404
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Throughout history, the mysterious dark skies above us have inspired our imaginations in countless ways, influencing our endeavours in science and philosophy, religion, literature and art. Celestial Treasury is a truly beautiful book showing the richness of astronomical theories and illustrations in Western civilization through the ages, exploring their evolution, and comparing ancient and modern throughout. From Greek verse, mediaeval manuscripts and Victorian poetry to spacecraft photographs and computer-generated star charts, the unprecedented wealth of these portrayals is quite breathtaking. How did philosophers and scientists try to explain the order which seems to govern celestial motion? How did geometers and artists measure and map the skies? How many different answers have been proposed for the most fundamental of all questions: When and how did our world come about? Who inhabits the Heavens - gods, angels or extraterrestrials? The answers to these questions can be found among these stunning pages.

Table of Contents

Part I. Celestial Harmony: 1. Geometry and the cosmos

2. The celestial hierarchy

3. The grandeur of space

4. Finite or infinite?

5. The structure of the world

6. Celestial music

7. World systems

Part II. Uranometry: 8. Mapping the sky

9. Naming the stars

10. The development of celestial atlases

11. The depths of space

Part III. The Creation: 12. From myth to myth

13. The metamorphosis of chaos

14. Time and creation

15. The Creator

16. The order of creation

17. The date of creation

18. The theory of evolution

19. The Big Bang

20. A modern creation

Part IV. Creatures of the Sky: 21. Humanity beneath the sky

22. The sky in humanity

23. Humanity in the sky

24. The worlds in the sky.