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The Ballet of the Planets
A Mathematician's Musings on the Elegance of Planetary Motion
Donald Benson
240 pages
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60 b&w
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235x156mm
978-0-19-989100-9
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Hardback
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21 June 2012
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- Uses bright, accessible language to explain planetary motion to the nonscientist
- Illustrates how and why the scientific method worked in the past and how it continues to work today
The Ballet of the Planets unravels the beautiful mystery of planetary motion, revealing how our understanding of astronomy evolved from Archimedes and Ptolemy to Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. Mathematician Donald Benson shows that ancient theories of planetary motion were based on the assumptions that the Earth was the center of the universe and the planets moved in a uniform circular motion. Since ancient astronomers noted that occasionally a planet would exhibit retrograde motion—would seem to reverse its direction and move briefly westward—they concluded that the planets moved in epicyclic curves, circles with
smaller interior loops, similar to the patterns of a child's Spirograph. With the coming of the Copernican revolution, the retrograde motion was seen to be apparent rather than real, leading to the idea that the planets moved in ellipses. This laid the ground for Newton's great achievement—integrating the concepts of astronomy and mechanics—which revealed not only how the planets moved, but also why. Throughout, Benson focuses on naked-eye astronomy, which makes it easy for the novice to grasp the work of these pioneers of astronomy.Readership: General readers, students, professionals, and hobbyists with an interest in mathematics.
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Donald Benson, Emeritus Professor, University of California, Davis Donald C. Benson is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Davis, and the author of A Smoother Pebble and The Moment of Proof.
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"For anyone with a keen interest in astronomy, geometry, and the history of science, however, the book will be a must-read." - Andrew May, Fortean Times
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Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The Survival of the Valid
I. Birth
2 The Bowl of Night
3 Epicycles and Relative Motion
4 The Deferent-Epicycle Model
5 Making Money, Et Cetera
II Rebirth
6 The Reluctant Revolutionary
7 Circles No More
8 The War with Mars
III Enlightenment
9 The Birth of Mechanics
10 The Astronomical Alchemist
A. The Greek Alphabet
B. Vectors
Notes
References
Index
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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