Seeing and Believing: A Short History of the Telescope and How we Look at the Universe [Hardcover]

Richard Panek (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

In 1609, Galileo fit two lenses inside a cylindrical tube, aimed it at the sky, and forever changed the world. With pith and charm, Seeing and Believing tells the story--era by era, visionary by visionary, technology by technology, and discovery by discovery--of how the telescope has changed the way we look at ourselves. In the tradition of Dava Sobel's bestselling Longitude, it focuses on the often larger-than-life figures behind our cosmological odyssey--from Galileo and William Herschel (the musician-turned-astronomer who discovered Uranus) to the crazy brilliance of George Ellery Hale and the minds behind the mighty Hubble space telescope. Seamlessly fusing elements of philosophy, politics, literature, and religion, this fascinating narrative chronicles the humbling journey into a universe infinitely more vast than we ever imagined. Star- gazers, space enthusiasts, and curious minds of every sort will love this holiday and year-round gift.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Journalist Richard Panek begins his historical essay on the telescope with the Hubble Deep Field. This extended exposure by space telescope is a picture that looks out of our galaxy--farther, immeasurably farther, than the human eye has seen before. It exemplifies the purpose of all telescopes: "To address our place in the universe, literally. To size up all of space and figure out where we are in it." How and why did this particular technology have such profound effects?

Panek first considers Galileo, who "raised his new instrument toward the night sky and understood at once that there was more to see--and more to seeing--than meets the eye.... Unlike spectacles or magnifying lenses, the optic tube offered not just a distortion of what was already there, but more. It revealed evidence that was different from what the naked eye could see, evidence that wasn't otherwise there." Panek goes on to look at the, ahem, luminaries of observational astronomy--William Herschel, George Ellery Hale, Edwin Hubble--showing how faith in the telescope grew and our mental image of the universe expanded until "all the assumptions safely based on observation are gone." Panek's prose is vivid and beautiful, sustaining this (curiously) unillustrated book as it traces the astronomer's quest for light and dark, sight and belief. --Mary Ellen Curtin

From Publishers Weekly

Panek's concise, popularly written history of the telescope is an exciting interstellar voyage that shows how a humble novelty item and maritime tool evolved into a powerful exploratory instrument that has changed our conception of the cosmos. Although Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons with a spyglass in 1610 helped demolish the medieval worldview that placed a stationary earth at the center of creation, faulty lenses and frustrating optics hobbled astronomical research for decades. Amateur astronomer William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781 led to his pre-Einsteinian insight that stargazers were not only looking tens of trillions of miles into space, but also penetrating into time past. Yet, incredibly, as recently as the turn of this century most astronomers clung to the belief that the universe consisted of just one galaxyAoursAwith the sun in a central position. In 1996, the Hubble Space Telescope pierced the heavens, resulting in the current estimate of a total of 50 billion galaxies. Panek (Waterloo Diamonds), contributing writer at Elle and Mirabella, puts these and other conceptual breakthroughs into clear perspective as he deftly explains how astronomy's interface with photography, spectroscopy, radio and space exploration led to the discovery of quasars, pulsars, black holes, galaxy superclusters and the search for "dark matter." His narrative sometimes bogs down in technical detail, but, nonetheless, it is a delightful intellectual adventure, fleshed out with vivid cameos of innovators like Tycho Brahe, Edwin Hubble and visionary astrophysicist George Ellery Hale, who in 1948 supervised the construction of what was then the world's largest telescope at Mount Palomar, but whose mental illness made him report that he was suffering periodic visits from an elf. Agent, Henry Dunow.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670876283
• ISBN-13: 978-0670876280
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,892,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Astronomy & Space Science > Telescopes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb little book!, June 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Seeing and Believing: A Short History of the Telescope and How we Look at the Universe (Hardcover)

This is a very enjoyable book! As a professional astronomer, I can only recommend this book to all people interested on the impact that the telescope had in the history of mankind. Although there is no deep technical description of telescopes here, this is not the point. The telescope has changed and is still changing the way we see the Universe and Panek does a very good job at describing the major contributions of this wonderful invention.

My only complaint is that the last chapter might be a bit too rushed compared to the previous ones since it basically reviews all modern astronomy in about 20 pages. But, otherwise, strongly recommended!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elegant, terrific, informative, October 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Seeing and Believing: A Short History of the Telescope and How we Look at the Universe (Hardcover)

Richard Panek has outdone even his fine Waterloo Diamonds book. In Seeing and Believing, he unites science, history, and philosophy in a very accessible and dramatic way. I would think anyone concerned with contemporary technology issues will want to devour this book, and that it would make a stellar holiday gift for any thinking person.

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of insight into the history of the telescope, July 13, 2009

By 

Charles Hall (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seeing and Believing: How the Telescope Opened Our Eyes and Minds to the Heavens (Paperback)

I've read a lot of books about telescopes and the history of astronomy so I was somewhat skeptical that this small format text from 1998 would be all that interesting. But it only took a few pages' reading to realize that this book was something special. It is not a bare bones recital of the standard history you read in other books, where other books summarize Galileo and the telescope in a sentence or two and then move on, Panek devotes about a 1/3 of the book to what happened *after* Galileo made his telescope but *before* the next advance in telescope design. What happened was that astronomers changed their whole way of thinking about the universe, starting with convincing themselves that the image in the telescope was actually a reality, and not some distortion of their vision. When refracting telescopes were improved later, astronomers dismissed them because the image was upside down! It was only years later that they realized it didn't matter in astronomy what was up and what was down. I've never read about this in any other books.

In addition to an in-depth study of the Galileo period, William Herschel gets a large portion of the book. This is also fascinating and new because most books mention his work (a huge star catalog, discovery of Uranus), but little about the man himself. It's interesting to see here how a musician giving 8 lessons a day becomes the astronomer to the king.

Lastly Hale and Hubbard get their due. Again with more insight into Hale than I've gotten out of hour-long documentaries on TV.

It helps to have been exposed to some of this material elsewhere, since this book had no illustrations or photos. But it certainly fills in some gaps in history that you will find interesting.