Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology - Hardcover

Comets, Popular Culture, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology.

Zustand: Gut. Ill. 365 p. From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Very good and clean. - Sehr gut und sauber. - In a lively investigation into the boundaries between popular culture and early- modern science, Sara Schechner Genuth presents a case study that challenges the view that rationalism was at odds with popular belief in the development of scientific theories. Schechner Genuth de- lineates the evolution of peoples understanding of comets, showing that until the seventeenth century, all members of society dreaded comets as heaven-sent portents of plague, flood, civil disorder, and other calamities. Although these beliefs became spurned as vulgar superstitions by the elite before the end of the century, she shows that they were nonetheless absorbed into the science of Newton and Halley, contributing to their theories in subtle yet profound ways. 0Schechner Genuth weaves together many strands of thought: views of comets as signs and causes of social and physical changes; vigilance toward monsters and prodigies as indicators of Gods will; Christian eschatology; scientific interpretations of Scripture; astrological prognostication and political propaganda; and celestial mechanics and astrophysics. This exploration of the interplay between high and low beliefs about nature leads to the conclusion that popular and long-held views of comets as divine signs were not overturned by astronomical discoveries. Indeed, they became part of the foundation on which modern cosmology was built. Sara Schechner Genuth is Resident Scholar at the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian Institution. For many years the Curator of the History of Astronomy Collection at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, she is Editor of the Adler Planetariums catalog of its scientific instrument collection. ISBN 9780691011509 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 720 Original cloth with dustjacket. Originalleinen mit Schutzumschlag. Artikel-Nr. 1186088

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