Book Description
Europa – The Ocean Moon tells the story of the Galileo spacecraft probe to Jupiter's moon, Europa. It provides a detailed description of the physical processes, including the dominating tidal forces that operate on Europa, and includes a comprehensive tour of Europa using images taken by Galileo's camera. The book reviews and evaluates the interpretative work carried out to date, providing a philosophical discussion of the scientific process of analyzing results and the pitfalls that accompany it. It also examines the astrobiological constraints on this possible biosphere, and implications for future research, exploration and planetary biological protection.
Europa – The Ocean Moon provides a unique understanding of the Galileo images of Europa, discusses the theory of tidal processes that govern its icy ridged and disrupted surface, and examines in detail the physical setting that might sustain extra-terrestrial life in Europa's ocean and icy crust.
Customer Reviews:
explains Galileo results.......2006-11-06
As one after the other of the planets seems so bereft of life, Europa holds a unique position. It has a frozen over ocean. Plus, in its orbit, there is the prospect of residual volcanism and tidal and magnetic effects providing a raw energy driver for life to have emerged and be sustained.
So the text gives the results of the Galileo probe. You get an appreciation for the difficulties surmounted. Every so often, NASA really does an amazing job. Fascinating observaitions, but these beg for more insight. Necessitates another probe, this time with even better technology for remote sensing. Given that Galileo was launched in the late 80s, think how much better computing resources we could now put into its successor!
The book certainly has more than just findings from Galileo. It also discusses our changing and improving understanding of how to model vastly different biospheres. But the text is clearly dominated by the real Galileo results. Not just speculation.
Portions of the book will be beyond the lay reader. But there's enough that is well written and accessible to everyone.
Book Description
The dramatic story of an era during which science and religion were one and where one man dared to defy the only power on earth that was able to bring him to his knees.
Customer Reviews:
Alas the power of a Church with civil authority.......2007-07-25
This book gives a prime example of why our forefathers wanted to keep the Church and the Governemnt separate. What the church, the Catholic Church specifically, did to Galileo simply because he dared to embrace the belief that the earth revolved around the sun was tragic. Once again the author takes historical, truthful data and tells an emotional story of a tragic, historical event. This book is a must for everyone.
Beyond the science & religion collision.......2006-12-29
This is a fine biography that brings to life one of the greatest men to advance our civilization.I read this book because I have always found the relationship of Galileo's ideas and the Roman Catholic Church to be one of the most intriguing chapters in church history. The book goes back to his childhood and highlights his major intellectual accomplishments and his relationships with family members and friends. His illegitimate children and how they were percieved by society was an eye opener. As a result he sent his daughters to the convent because no one would want to marry them. I wonder how many other women ended up nuns as a result? His days while attending school were very interesting, his university teaching jobs more interesting, his relationships with other intellectuals and politicians of his age even more interesting but his relationship after presenting his scientific theories on movement of the heavenly bodies the most fascinating. It makes you wonder about the church and some of the science that it is at odds with today won't be looked at years down the line as backwards and wrong as well. The time period of Galileo's life is brought to life to reveal all of its majesty and warts.I found myself wanting to read more about Galileo after reading this book and have since read another entitled "Galileo's Daughter." What a brilliant mind and tragic figure Galileo was. If you like history or biographies this will be a good book for you.
The other side of a great life.......2006-11-28
Though it does not advance any particular historical hypothesis, "Galileo" does tell the life story of one of history's best-known figures. After all, how much has been written about specific events in Galileo's life without filling in such details as how he lived the other decades of his life? Indeed, his early years often get short shrift. This James Reston biography brings the full life history to the forefront without skimping on the essential stuff that made Galileo so well known.
Concerning the events of his fame or infamy, Reston brings us up to speed as well. It's all very well and good to say that Galileo was summoned to Rome, tried for advocating Copernicanism, and given a house arrest sentence. What about his illnesses? What tone of questioning was he subjected to, and how did he attempt to answer? What were his living conditions like? What interest did Pope Urban VIII show in the trial as it happened? When did Galileo finally reach his final home? Did he have adequate medical treatment there? And so on. Similarly, his earlier, happier decades come to life in the same way. What was his family like? How were his finances? Who were his friends and who were his enemies (before the trial)? What sorts of problems did he work on? Who were his benefactors, and what did they do for him when he needed them?
There are no deep thoughts here. No theories on the hidden truth behind the trial. No analysis of scientific and mathematical subtleties. Just a life story that can bring a touch of humanity to a historical icon.
Great addition to Galileo library.......2006-02-13
If you already know something about Galileo, this book will be a wonderful addition to your knowledge base. If you are a newcomer, this book is a good introduction, but it will leave you wishing you knew more about his experimental method, his scientific writing, and his inventions. This book places Galileo in the context of his time and place -- and showing how he influenced his era (and eras after) -- and it also leaves you wanting a more traditional biography that tells you more about what Galileo did.
Galileo: A Life.......2006-01-08
If you are looking for a biography that discusses Galileo's scientific work, you will be disappointed. Reston must, of course, mention this great thinker's discoveries, but that is as far as it goes. There is little about the influence of his discoveries on the scientific community or how it shaped the world afterwards. I would have expected this to be one of the central themes considering the subject of this biography. The book deals almost exclusively with Galileo's struggles with the church. It is obvious that Reston has no scientific background. He should have picked someone else to write about.
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Brecht Collected Plays: Five: Life of Galileo and Mother Courage and Her Children (Methuen World Classics)
Bertolt Brecht
Manufacturer: A&C Black
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ASIN: 0413699706 |
Book Description
The fifth volume in the Collected Plays series brings together two of Brecht's best-known plays,
Life of Galileo and
Mother Courage and Her Children.
Life of Galileo, which examines the conflict between free inquiry and official ideology, contains one of Brecht's most human and complex central characters. Mother Courage is also one of Brecht's great creations: she clings to her livelihood-her canteen wagon-in this "chronicle play of the Thirty Years War," while one by one she loses her children to the war.
This volume, edited and introduced by John Willett and Ralph Manheim, gives full translations of each of the plays and includes Brecht's own notes and all the most important textual variants.
Book Description
Galileo, one of history's best-known scientists, is introduced in this illuminating activity book. Children will learn how Galileo's revolutionary discoveries and sometimes controversial theories changed his world and laid the groundwork for modern astronomy and physics. This book will inspire kids to be stargazers and future astronauts or scientists as they discover Galileo's life and work. Activities allow children to try some of his theories on their own, with experiments that include playing with gravity and motion, making a pendulum, observing the moon, and painting with light and shadow. Along with the scientific aspects of Galileo's life, his passion for music and art are discussed and exemplified by period engravings, maps, and prints. A time line, glossary, and listings of major science museums, planetariums, and web sites for further exploration complement this activity book.
Customer Reviews:
Most of the activities in this book on Galileo are really scientific experiments.......2006-03-03
The only real complaint about "Galileo for Kids: His Life and Ideas, 25 Activities," is that I doubt there is a teacher in the country who would spend long enough on the famous scientist to do all of these activities. If they got to double figures that would be pretty impressive, but also somewhat doubtful. However, there are certainly some choice activities in this book by Richard Panchyk (Buzz Aldrin does the foreword) that will not only get young students interested in the life of Galileo but also fan their interest in the sciences.
This book makes it clear that while he is best known as an astronomer, Galileo was a genius who enjoyed science, mathematics, music, and art, and someone who sough the truth and believed there was no substitute for observation and experimentation. Despite being forced by the Church to recant his discovery that the sun was the center of the universe, Panchyk makes it clear that Galileo believed both science and religion help us to know ourselves. After a Timeline that begins with a new star being observed by the Chinese in 1054 to Galileo being reburied with proper honors in 1737, and a map of Italy, this book turns to Science and Astronomy Before Galileo, to set up how important he was in changing things. Astronomers including Peter Apian, Nicolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe are covered, as well as the Comet of 1577. The activities here include making initial lunar observations and how to use raw data, so you can see there is an initial focus on scientific metrology.
The second chapter details the Beginnings of Galileo's life, where you not only get to cook a renaissance meal (meatballs and pea soup), but also get to make a pendulum and pulsilogia. In chapter 3, Position at Pisa, Galileo began his career as a scientist. There are also sidebars on Dante, Johannes Kepler, and the Medicis so the religious, scientific and political contexts of the time are covered as well. Activities include not only the famous gravity experiment, put also the properties of the ellipse and the second part of lunar observation. The Telescope is the focus of the next chapter, which includes an aperture experiment and the floating needle experiment.
The Storm Builds is the subject of chapter five, signifying the coming collision between Galileo's science and the religion of the day. Here the activities are the perception of illumination and the mathematical problem represented by the roll of the dice (plus making a care package for Galileo because of the plague). Chapter six covers The Two Systems, with experiments on relative motion and projective motion. However, most of these chapters tell the story of what happened when Galileo was called before the Inquisition. Galileo's Last Days are covered in the last chapter, along with experiments on accelerated motion and charting the cycloid curve. The look at the life and times of Galileo is pretty strong to begin with, so when you add the activities and see that the vast majority of them are practical scientific experiments, then you have to be even more impressed. In fact, I could be wrong: I can now see a teacher breaking up the class into lots of groups and having them do different activities and sharing the results with their classmates, so getting to double figures could be pretty easy (although making meatballs can be seen as being practical too, since kids have to eat).
Throughout the book there are illustrations of the people, places and things in Galileo's life, many of which are contemporary to his time. The back of the book includes several pages of Resources. There are lists of the Popes and Grand Dukes of Tuscany during Galileo's time, a Glossary of Key Terms from "abjuration" to "volume," Key People from Peter and Philip Apian to Vincenzo Viviani, and Key Places from Arcetri to Venice. A list of Galileo's key writings is provided, along with some web sites specific to his life and works, and there is also a list of Planetariums an Astronomy/Space Museums to be found in fourteen states and the District of Columbia. If you are not tired you can also check out the Selected Bibliography before we finally get to the Index.
The final thing that needs to be said is that this is but one volume in the For Kids series. There are over a dozen volumes that I know about for sure. The one's under "A" consist of "Africa for Kids," "American Folk Art for Kids," "The American Revolution for Kids," and "Archaeology for Kids." Those four titles along should give you a good idea of the scope of the series. So teachers might only use a couple of activities from this book, but they can do the same for units on Leonardo da Vinci, Lewis and Clark, the Civil Rights Movement, and know that Chicago Review Press will be adding volumes to this wonderful series for some time to come.
Book Description
Years ago, David Freedberg stumbled across a group of drawings by the little-known Academy of Linceans, a seventeenth-century Italian group that took as its task nothing less than the pictorial documentation of all of nature. Moving across Europe, he encountered thousands of such drawings—of fossils, the species of the New World, or the heavenly bodies studied by the group's most famous member, Galileo Galilei. Profusely illustrated and engagingly written, this book reveals this crucial moment in the development of natural history.
Customer Reviews:
Gorgeous book.......2002-12-20
This book, by David Freedberg, tells the fascinating story of Freedberg's discovery, on a tip from the notorious spy and brilliant art historian Anthony Blunt, of a group of amazing antique drawings stashed away in an obscure cupboard in Windsor Castle. The images, gracefully drawn and beautifully colored, depicted a bizarre range of flora and fauna: deformed lemons with claw-like legs, flamingoes, dramatic portraits of badger faces, strange plants...
The discovery marked the beginning of a great adventure told in the book--of Freedberg's search for and discovery of the source of the drawings: a 17th-century gang of noblemen and eccentrics based largely in Rome who took as their mission nothing less than the discovery, analysis, and visual record of all natural knowledge. They called themselves the Accademia Lincea, or Academy of Lynxes. This was the age of Galileo, who was in fact a member, and whose work the Lincea edited and published. With the aid of microscopes, telescopes, and other instruments, the Lincea and their peers began to develop a picture of the natural world in all its details that profoundly challenged traditional views of Heaven and Earth, supported by the Roman Catholic Church.
Freedberg's manner is at once learned and accessible. He tells a gripping story of a group of fascinating characters, some brilliant, some insane, and their grand projects, including a decidedly obsessive interest in bees. Lavishly illustrated in color and black-and-white, this is surely one of the most attractive, novel, and important works of history this year.
A MUST-HAVE FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN SCIENCE AND ITS HISTORY.......2002-12-19
Rich in breathtakingly beautiful illustrations (83 color plates, 89 halftones) "The Eye of the Lynx" is a must-have for those with a penchant for science and its history.
We are told that author Freedberg, an art history professor and director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, once happened upon a neglected cupboard in Windsor Castle holding hundreds of intricately precise drawings of plants and animals dating from the Old and New Worlds. He was acting on the word of Anthony Blount, an art historian and British spy. These drawings had been hidden and forgotten since the days of King George III.
Later, after coming across countless more throughout Europe, Freedberg discovered their provenance - a small 17th century scientific group. Based in Italy it was called the Academy of Linceans for Lynx-eyed.
This optimistic organization set as their goal the representation of all nature in pictures. The mighty task of the Linceans is recounted for the first time in English in this wondrous book. They, unlike their predecessors, focused on internal structures rather than external appearances.
For its time, one of the most outre ideas proposed by the Linceans was the microscope. They simply turned Galileo's telescope around and exposed a once invisible world.
Freedberg has rendered an enormous service in bringing to light this integral portion of the development of visuals as related to natural history.
- Gail Cooke
Book Description
Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. William H. Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists--all geniuses--who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. As Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In addition, since scientists in a particular field often inspire those who follow, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline--mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and so on--each section beginning with a historical overview. Thus in the section on quantum mechanics, readers can see how the work of Max Planck influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner Heisenberg. By sequencing the biographies in this way, Cropper gives us an overall portrait of each field. Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries, starting with Galileo and his telescope and stretching to Stephen Hawking's work on black holes and cosmology. With Great Physicists, readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.
Customer Reviews:
Highly recommended.......2006-08-21
This is an excellent book. Cropper must have put an enormous effort into researching and writing this 500 page, large format paperback, which has been nicely printed on white paper. At its current price of $12.97 an incredible bargain.
At first glance this book appears to be sort of a strange hybrid of biography and science, but the combo works. Cropper generally starts a chapter on a scientist with a few page biographical sketch followed by a longer, clearly written, physics section. I would estimate that the book is about 70% physics and about 30% biographical. The biographical sections are well done and interesting, but the book really shines in its overview of the physics.
Cropper covers 30 scientists with many of them in thermodynamics and atomic physics. Reading these sections you not only get a good overview of the science at a moderate technical level (a notch or two above the usual popular science writing level since Cropper is not afraid of using equations), but also you get an historical understanding of who did what and how their contributions fit together. Another plus is that Cropper will often describe in some detail how a key experiment has been done.
As a technical person (like a previous reviewer, I am an engineer), not only did I learn a lot from this book about how many of the secrets of this world have been discovered, but some of the gaps in my physics knowledge were filled in. Cropper set himself a big task to write an overview of much of physics, but he has pulled it off with style.
Great Book!.......2004-01-28
This is the best book I have read about the human side of physicists. Although, I have a Masters degree in physics, you don't need to be a practicing scientist to throughly enjoy the contents of this wonderful work. Cropper did an outstanding writing job.
What a wonderful book!.......2002-08-19
I've picked up many books over the years telling the stories of great scientists, but this is the only book of this type that I couldn't put down. I am a degreed engineer, now working in computers, with physics as a hobby. The coverage of Thermodynamics, which I have studied extensively, was fascinatingly rich and accessible. The complexity of other topics, such as nuclear physics, of which I know little, was surprizingly clear.
My curiosity attracts me to picking up compilations such as this, but I usually find them disjunct and uninteresting. Mr. Cooper has done an amazing job of weaving a coherent story of the lives of these fascinating characters spanning a history of 400 years.
Customer Reviews:
A great Social/Political Satire..........2005-10-06
Bertolt Brecht's "the Life of Galileo" is perhaps one of his best known plays which came to define the Epic Drama genre of the 20th century. Written in America after Brecht fled the Nazi uprising in Germany, "the Life of Galileo" takes a bold stance about science and scientific discovery in a time when Atomic Theory and the development of an Atomic Bomb were making people consider what may happen when something good (atomic energy) are made into something bad (atomic bombs).
Though this version is the revised edition to the play (Brecht had written two previous versions that he changed) it still captures the spirit of Epic drama and the social/political issues can be deduced by Brecht's portrayl of Galileo.
Putting it on..........2000-05-03
It's a fascinating play, but it's important to take into consideration that it takes up to 4 hours to produce in its entirety, requires a cast of up to 40 people plus orchestra and tech crew. The carnival scene (10) also requires many props, and setting it during the renaissance can be demanding for a costumier! We performed it outside in winter at night. Brrrr...
Book Description
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.So begins Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. And without doubt the Age of Reason--the Enlightenment--was a period unlike any other. In many respects it was during this time that the modern world was forged.It was a time when worldviews clashed and new ways of seeing and understanding emerged. And it was in the arena of religion, above all, that this clash took place. Our modern ideas of religion, our modern ideas of science, and our perspectives on the interaction between religion and science were developed as the Enlightenment gathered momentum and encountered opposition.In this volume, part of the IVP Histories series, Jonathan Hill examines the Age of Reason, spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He begins by describing how the Middle Ages came to an end with the Renaissance and the Reformation, setting the scene for the Enlightenment. He then takes you on a fascinating tour of the central themes and characters of this turbulent period. Themes covered include: the churches, the new science, the new philosophy, the question of authority, politices and society, God, humanity and the world, the reaction and the legacy. Key figures you'll encounter include Samuel Johnson, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Hume, Voltaire, Pascal, Locke, Diderot, Rousseau and Kant.Packed with centuries worth of fascinating prose and beautiful four-color art yet small enough to fit in your pocket, Faith in the Age of Reason offers a wonderfully rich and enjoyable exploration of one of great perioed of human history.
Customer Reviews:
Clear, concise presentation of the Enlightenment.......2005-02-19
This book was required reading for my class on "Christianity and the Enlightenment" at seminary, and although I found it to be informative, I also found that I forgot much of the material soon after I read it. I'm not sure what to attribute this fact to, but I'm guessing that it has something to do either with the author's style or just to the fact that this was a short book on a broad topic. I doubt that the latter is the cause, however, since I usually enjoy overview books of this sort. Aside from the fact that I immediately forgot a large amount of the material, however, Hill manages to give a good account of Enlightenment ideas and history, if you can handle the machinegun speed at which he introduces new people, ideas, and movements.
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Life of Galileo (Methuen Modern Plays)
Bertolt Brecht
Manufacturer: A&C Black
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Continental European
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Brecht, Bertolt
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Brecht, Bertolt
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ASIN: 0413763803 |
Book Description
Along with Mother Courage, the character of Galileo is one of Brecht's greatest creations, immensely live, human, and complex. Unable to resist his appetite for scientific investigation, Galileo's heretical discoveries about the solar system bring him to the attention of the Inquisition. He is scared into publicly abjuring his theories but, despite his self-contempt, goes on working in private, eventually helping to smuggle his writings out of the country.
As an examination of the problems that face not only the scientist but also the whole spirit of free inquiry when brought into conflict with the requirements of government or official ideology,
Life of Galileo has few equals.
Written in exile in 1937-39 and first performed in Zurich in 1943, Galileo was first staged in English in 1947 by Joseph Losey in a version jointly prepared by Brecht and Charles Laughton, who played the title role. Printed here is the complete translation by John Willett. The much shorter Laughton version is also included in full as an appendix, along with Brecht's own copious notes on the play.
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Galileo His Life and Work
John Fahie
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
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Scientists
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ASIN: 1417969997 |
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