The man and the idea that created modern science, as seen by one of today's most celebrated writers.In 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus lay on his deathbed, his just-published masterpiece On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in his hands. At that time, religious doctrine and common sense dictated that the earth ruled the universe, with the sun, moon, planets, and stars all rotating around it. By putting the sun at the center of that cosmology, his book fomented another kind of revolution—a scientific one—that would lead to a completely new view of the universe, and humanity's place in it.As contemporary cosmologists explore the universe's vastness and the nearly insignificant role we play in it, the repercussions from Copernicus's radical step continue to resound. With the energetic prose and powerful intelligence for which he is known, William T. Vollmann provides an enlightening and readable explication not only of Copernicus's book but also of Copernicus's epoch, and the momentous clash between the two. 20 diagrams.

Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'

Science & Math

William T. Vollmann

Astronomy & Space Science

Atlas / W.W. Norton

The story of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer.To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary programmable calculating machine. But the idea of actually producing a "Turing machine" did not crystallize until he and his brilliant Bletchley Park colleagues built devices to crack the Nazis' Enigma code, thus ensuring the Allies' victory in World War II. In so doing, Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, formulating the famous (and still unbeaten) Turing Test that challenges our ideas of human consciousness. But Turing's postwar computer-building was cut short when, as an openly gay man in a time when homosexuality was officially illegal in England, he was apprehended by the authorities and sentenced to a "treatment" that amounted to chemical castration, leading to his suicide.With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—while elegantly explaining his work and its implications.

Man Who Knew Too Much

Literature & Fiction

LEAVITT, DAVID

Contemporary

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