Dante and the early astronomer : science, adventure, and a Victorian woman who opened the heavens / Tracy Daugherty.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Daugherty, Tracy, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Evershed, Mary Acworth, 1867-1949.

Evershed, Mary Acworth.

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321--Influence.

Dante Alighieri.

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321.

Science--History.

Science.

England.

Genre:

Biographies.

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (233 pages)

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Explore the evolution of astronomy from Dante to Einstein, as seen through the eyes of trailblazing Victorian astronomer Mary Acworth Evershed In 1910, Mary Acworth Evershed (1867-1949) sat on a hill in southern India staring at the moon as she grappled with apparent mistakes in Dante's Divine Comedy. Was Dante's astronomy unintelligible? Or was he, for a man of his time and place, as insightful as one could be about the sky? As the twentieth century began, women who wished to become professional astronomers faced difficult cultural barriers, but Evershed joined the British Astronomical Association and, from an Indian observatory, became an experienced observer of sunspots, solar eclipses, and variable stars. From the perspective of one remarkable amateur astronomer, readers will see how ideas developed during Galileo's time evolved or were discarded in Newtonian conceptions of the cosmos and then recast in Einstein's theories. The result is a book about the history of science but also a poetic meditation on literature, science, and the evolution of ideas.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface: The Dawn-Light of Ravenna

Acknowledgments

1. On the Hilltop

2. To the Lighthouse

3. The City of Stars

4. Poetry and Sunspots

5. "Black Star-Lore"

6. Physical Astronomy

7. Romantics

8. Prisms

9. The Notebook of the Sun

10. The Gift of the Forest

11. The Scarcity of Wasps in Kashmir

12. Harmonic Structures

13. "Dante and the Early Astronomers"

14. Sun-Chasers

15. Exploding the Sun

16. Saturnalia

17. Infinity and the Fly

18. Wallal

19. Departure

20. Who's Who in the Moon

21. The Maunder Minimum

22. The Remade Universe

23. Return to Origins

24. Northern Lights

Epilogue: Kodai Dusk

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Feb 2020)

ISBN:

0-300-24497-5

OCLC:

1091029267