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Sto caricando le informazioni... Il passaggio di Venere. La nascita della comunità scientifica internazionale attraverso una straordinaria avventura astronomica (2012)di Andrea Wulf
  
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 Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro.   ) cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |  Chasing Venus was the acid test of Wulf's writing for me, because space bores me silly. Yes, the stars are pretty to look at, and I urge everyone to find access to some dark corner of the world in which to view the Milky Way, because ... wow. And the Auroras are definite bucket list musts. But beyond that, the planets, constellations, black holes, etc ... eh, don't care. I hadn't even intended to read this one, but it showed up as available in audio at one of my libraries and I gave in to curiosity - could Wulf make the race to watch the transit of Venus in the 1700's interesting to someone like me? Turns out she can ... sort of. Did I care about will they/won't they question of success at getting the measurements? No, not really. But Wulf totally sucked me in to the drama and adventures of those men who rushed to the far corners of the globe ('rush' being a highly relative term in the 1700's) in the often vain hope of seeing the transit of Venus, and not dying in the process from disease, war, or boredom. I listed to this on audio and I thought the narrator did a terrific job, BUT, my American tin-ear for accents made some of the names really difficult to comprehend, coming from an British accented narrator and many of the names being French. This got better as the book progressed, but I do think I'd have probably gotten a bit more out of this book had I read the print version. (  )1  murderbydeath | Mar 31, 2023 | ) pedrolopez | Jun 17, 2021 | One drawback to the book is that it introduces some technical conflicts between the astronomers, without giving any idea what the substance of the dispute was. In the end this book reads like a novel. Full of excitement, funny in parts, very sad in parts, replete with warfare and disaster, triumphs, and finally, a lot of work for very little. The epilogue discusses the contributions that this one endeavor made to the idea of science as a more or less international enterprise. All the events described in this book happened during or just after the Seven Years War, known as the French and Indian war in the colonies. This book is also a reminder that warfare spanned the world long before WWI. It was just less organized and less pervasive back then. ( ) themulhern | Sep 14, 2014 | One of the best history of science books I've read in a while. It's amazing how in the 18th century, this was the first international scientific collaboration. And how for the first time we learned how big our solar system was. (  ) clmerle | Apr 2, 2013 | nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
"The author of the highly acclaimed Founding Gardeners now gives us an enlightening chronicle of the first truly international scientific endeavor--the eighteenth-century quest to observe the transit of Venus and measure the solar system. On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the earth and the sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system--but only if the transit could be viewed at the same time from many locations. Overcoming incredible odds and political strife, astronomers from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the American colonies set up observatories in remote corners of the world only to have their efforts thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs: eight years later, the scientists were given a second chance to get it right. Chasing Venus brings to life this extraordinary endeavor: the personalities of eighteenth-century astronomy, the collaborations, discoveries, personal rivalries, volatile international politics, and the race to be first to measure the distances between the planets"--Provided by publisher.
"On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the Earth and the sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system--but only if the transit could be viewed at the same time from many locations. Overcoming incredible odds and political strife, astronomers from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the American colonies set up observatories in remote corners of the world only to have their efforts thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs: eight years later, the scientists were given a second chance to get it right. Chasing Venus brings to life this extraordinary endeavor: the personalities of eighteenth-century astronomy, the collaborations, discoveries, personal rivalries, volatile international politics, and the race to be first to measure the distances between the planets"--Provided by publisher. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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 Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni...GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)523.9Natural sciences and mathematics Astronomy Astronomical objects and astrophysics Transits and occultationsClassificazione LCVotoMedia: (3.8)
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