The Fabric of the Heavens: The Development of Astronomy and Dynamics

by Toulmin, Stephen Edelston

• ISBN13: 9780226808482
• ISBN10: 0226808483
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Conceived as three companion volumes that form an introduction to the central ideas of the modern natural sciences, these booksintelligent, informative, and accessibleare an excellent source for those who have no technical knowledge of the subject. Praise forThe Fabric of the Heavens: "I cannot remember when I last went through a book, any book, with such all-devouring zest. What is more, even the most complex technicalities are reduced to a positively crystalline clarity: If I can understand them, anyone can.The Fabric of the Heavensis, in every sense of the word, an eye-opener."Peter Green,The Yorkshire Post "Not until the last chapter of the book is [the reader] allowed to think again wholly as a modern man has become accustomed, by common sense, to think. The discipline is admirably suited to the authors' task, and cunningly devised for the reader's edificationand, indeed, for his delight."Physics Today Praise forThe Architecture of Matter: "The Architecture of Matteris to be warmly recommended. It is that rare achievement, a lively book which at the same time takes the fullest possible advantage of scholarly knowledge."Charles C. Gillespie,New York Times Book Review "One is impressed by the felicity of the examples and by the lively clarity with which significant experiments and ideas are explained. . . . No other history of science is so consistently challenging."Scientific American Praise forThe Discovery of Time: "A subject of absorbing interest . . . is presented not as a history of science, but as a chapter in the history of ideas from the ancient Greeks to our own time."Times Literary Supplement

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	7	(4)
Authors' Foreword	11	(4)
General Introduction: Cosmology	15	(8)
PART I: THE SOURCES OF THE OLD ORDER
Celestial Forecasting	23	(29)
The Sources	24	(2)
The Problems	26	(4)
The Background of the Problems	30	(4)
The Solution to the Problems	34	(7)
The Wider Issues	41	(7)
How the Babylonians Computed Conjunctions	48	(4)
The Invention Of Theory	52	(38)
The Sources	52	(2)
The Background	54	(4)
The Character of Greek Theory	58	(6)
The First Theories	64	(5)
From Ingredients to Axioms	69	(10)
Plato's Geometrical Astronomy	79	(11)
The Premature Synthesis	90	(25)
Aristotle's Programme	91	(2)
Motion and Change	93	(12)
The Celestial Mechanism	105	(7)
The Size of the Earth's Sphere	112	(3)
Doubters And Heretics	115	(13)
Patching up the Dynamics	117	(2)
Amending the Astronomy	119	(3)
Aristarchos' Heliocentric Theory	122	(6)
Physics Loses Momentum	128	(25)
Four Questions	129	(2)
The Political Background to Late Greek Astronomy	131	(2)
The Scientific Background: The Retreat from Physics	133	(3)
The Scientific Background: An Acquisition	136	(1)
Ptolemy's Mathematical Astronomy	137	(8)
The Wider Revolt against Philosophy	145	(4)
Archimedes and the Circle	149	(4)
PART II: THE NEW PERSPECTIVE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
The Interregnum	153	(29)
The Roundabout Journey	153	(5)
The Mediaeval Revival	158	(3)
The Background to Copernicus	161	(4)
Mediaeval Arguments about the Moving Earth	165	(4)
Copernicus: His Aim and his Theory	169	(6)
Copernicus: His Achievement	175	(7)
Preparing the Ground	182	(28)
The Background of the New Science	182	(2)
The Work of Tycho Brahe	184	(5)
Galileo's Telescopic Discoveries	189	(9)
Johann Kepler's Astronomical Physics	198	(12)
The Creation of Mechanics	210	(18)
The Change from Aristotle to Newton	211	(2)
Treating Motion Mathematically	213	(8)
Motion and Force	221	(4)
The New Ideal: Straight-Line Motion	225	(3)
The New Picture Takes Shape	228	(22)
The Man and his Task	229	(3)
Newton's Argument	232	(6)
The Character of Newton's Achievement	238	(7)
The Unity of Craft and Theory	245	(5)
The Widening Horizon	250	(23)
The Loose Ends: (1) Planetary Inequalities	250	(6)
The Loose Ends: (2) The Mechanism of Gravity	256	(5)
The Larger-Scale Picture	261	(3)
The Wider Influences of Newton	264	(4)
Certainty and Scientific Theory	268	(5)
Index	273