Home
the Ballet of Planets: A Mathematician's Musings on Elegance Planetary Motion
Loading Inventory...
Barnes and Noble
the Ballet of Planets: A Mathematician's Musings on Elegance Planetary Motion
Current price: $72.00
Barnes and Noble
the Ballet of Planets: A Mathematician's Musings on Elegance Planetary Motion
Current price: $72.00
Loading Inventory...
Size: Hardcover
*Product Information may vary - to confirm product availability, pricing, and additional information please contact Barnes and Noble
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
motionwould seem to reverse its direction and move briefly westwardthey 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 achievementintegrating the concepts of astronomy and mechanicswhich 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.