The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology

What is our place in the cosmos? How big is the universe? No science has a more ancient lineage, or a greater capacity to awaken our sense of wonder, than astronomy and cosmology. With a witty and accessible style, John North tracks the development of celestial knowledge from prehistory to Stephen Hawking and the Hubble Space Telescope. North shows how the seasonal motions of sun, moon, and stars triggered the first efforts at systematic astronomy, from the megalithic observatory at Stonehenge to the achievements of astronomers in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome, India, China, and Central and South America. He recounts how, despite false starts, blind alleys, and missed connections, astronomical knowledge slowly accumulated until the synthesis of Islamic and medieval Christian science set the stage for the revolution in understanding brought about by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. Carrying this fascinating scientific journey through to the present, North tells how the insights of Einstein and others transformed the Newtonian universe into one of relativity, quantum particles, black holes, and the big bang. The result is a brilliant, engaging history of humanity's quest to understand how the universe works.