Nicolaus Copernicus: Making the Earth a Planet [Hardcover]

Owen Gingerich (Author), James MacLachlan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195161734 | ISBN-13: 978-0195161731 | Publication Date: June 16, 2005

Born in Poland in 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus launched a quiet revolution. No scientist so radically transformed our understanding of our place in the universe as this curious bishop's doctor and church official. In his quest to discover a beautiful and coherent system to describe the motions of the planets, Copernicus placed the sun in the center of the system and made the earth a planet traveling around the sun. Today it is hard to imagine our solar system any other way, but for his time Copernicus's idea was earthshaking. In 1616 the church banned his book Revolutions because it contradicted the accepted notion that God placed Earth in the center of the universe. Even though those who knew of his work considered his idea dangerous, Revolutions remained of interest only to other scientists for many years. It took almost two hundred years for his concept of a sun-centered system to reach the general public. None the less, what Copernicus set out in his remarkable text truly revolutionized science. For this, Copernicus, a quiet doctor who made a tremendous leap of imagination, is considered the father of the Scientific Revolution.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–As a man of the Church, Copernicus was never aware of the impact of his ideas on the world. After a lifetime of figuring, observing the heavens, and studying classical theories, it was finally mathematics and his quest for an elegant solution that led him to conclude that Earth was a planet orbiting the sun. The era and events in which he lived are chronicled as the authors describe Copernicus's life and efforts to explain the rotation of the planets. However, the detailed descriptions of his process and the explanations of theories are difficult, and it might take readers with an advanced degree in mathematics to understand the specifics. Numerous diagrams illustrate the concepts; additional art includes woodcuts, details from period books and paintings, and photographs. All are helpful and appropriate, but unsourced. Also, the narrative flow suffers when five titled sidebars have nothing more than a border to distinguish them from the main text; the instructions to proceed to nonsequential pages are frustrating. For students seriously interested in astronomy and how Copernicus solved the riddle of the heavens, this is a valuable resource. For those wanting an overview, this book is too complex.–Janet S. Thompson, Chicago Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. This Oxford Portraits in Science biography, cowritten by frequent series contributor MacLachlan and astronomer Gingerich (who wrote about Copernicus for adults in The Book Nobody Read, 2003), offers an unusually authoritative view of the amateur astronomer who dared to imagine the earth revolving around the sun. The narrative first describes the era's accepted ideas about the heavens and how Copernicus came to disagree with them; closing chapters highlight why the publication of his theories in 1543 might be considered "the quietest revolution in history." Unmotivated readers may balk at the drab presentation, and the technical sidebars will probably require more than the "minute or two of thought" conceded by the coauthors. In the end, though, what will stay with readers is the insightful perspective on an era in science history when planets were assumed to be embedded in crystalline spheres and scholars struggled poignantly to explain inconsistencies in the earth-centric paradigm. A time line and lists of book and Web resources are appended, though endnotes would have made this an even stronger resource. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195161734
• ISBN-13: 978-0195161731
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #415,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Succinct yet interesting, April 19, 2006

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Paul Carleton (Pontiac, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nicolaus Copernicus: Making the Earth a Planet (Hardcover)

Having read and reviewed Gingerich's "The Book Nobody Read", I decided to order his & MacLachlan's "Nicolaus Copernicus", eventho' it seemed overpriced for a small book aimed at `young adults'. It succinctly yet interestingly portrays Copernicus' life and work using diagrams to describe the astronomy without resorting to math, so it seems well suited to bright teenage readers (altho' it's been sixty years since I was a teenager). Undoubtedly Oxford uses a library binding so the book can survive the rigors of high-school libraries which explains its price. And it contains far more information than available on Encarta so it's a good resource for students' research projects (or old geezers' curiosity).