Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens

基本信息出版社:Knopf (2012年5月1日)精装:336页正文语种:英语ISBN:0307700178条形码:9780307700179商品重量:708 gASIN:0307700178亚马逊热销商品排名:图书商品里排第754,105名 (查看图书商品销售排行榜)第19位-图书>进口原版书>History（历史）>World（世界）>Expeditions & Discoveries第71位-图书>进口原版书>Science（科学）>Astronomy（天文学）>Astronomy您想告诉我们您发现了更低的价格?

商品描述内容简介The author of the highly acclaimedFounding Gardenersnow 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 they could compile data from many different points of the globe, all recorded during the short period of the transit. 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 would have another opportunity to succeed.

   Chasing Venus

brings to life the personalities of the eighteenth-century astronomers who embarked upon this complex and essential scientific venture, painting a vivid portrait of the collaborations, the rivalries, and the volatile international politics that hindered them at every turn. In the end, what they accomplished would change our conception of the universe and would forever alter the nature of scientific research.

作者简介ANDREA WULF was born in India and moved to Germany as a child. She lives in London, where she trained as a design historian at the Royal College of Art. She is the author ofThe Brother Gardeners,long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2008 and winner of the American Horticultural Society 2010 Book Award, and ofFounding Gardeners; she is the coauthor (with Emma Gieben-Gamal) ofThis Other Eden: Seven Great Gardens and 300 Years of English History. She has written forThe Sunday Times,theFinancial Times,The Wall Street Journal, and theLos Angeles Times,and she reviews for several newspapers, includingTheNew York Times,The Guardian, andThe Times Literary Supplement.