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Heaven on Earth: How Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo Discovered the Modern World
A vivid narrative that connects the lives of four great astronomers as they discovered, refined, and popularized the first major scientific discovery of the modern that the Earth moves around the Sun.
Today we take for granted that a telescope allows us to see galaxies millions of light years away. But before its invention, people used nothing more than their naked eye to fathom what took place in the visible sky. So how did four men in the 1500's—of different nationality, age, religion, and class—collaborate to discover that the Earth revolved around the Sun? With this radical discovery that went against the Church, they created our contemporary world—and with it, the uneasy conditions of modern life.
Heaven on Earth is an intimate examination of this scientific family—that of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Fauber juxtaposes their scientific work with insight into their personal lives and political considerations, which shaped their pursuit of knowledge. Uniquely, he shows how their intergenerational collaboration was actually what made the scientific revolution possible.
Ranging from the birth of astronomy and the methods of early scientific research, Fauber reveals the human story that underlies this civilization altering discovery. And, contrary to the competitive nature of research today, collaboration was key to early scientific discovery. Before the rise of university research institutions, deep thinkers only had each other. They created a kind of family, related to each other via intellectual pursuit rather than blood.
These men called each other “brothers,” “fathers,” and “sons,” and laid the foundations of modern science through familial co-work. And though the sixteenth century was far from the an open society for women, There were female pioneers in this “family” as well, including Brahe's sister Sophie, Kepler’s mother, and Galileo's daughter.
Filled with rich characters and sweeping historical scope, Heaven on Earth reveals how the strong connections between these pillars of intellectual history moved science forward—and how, without them, we might have waited a long time for a heliocentric model of the universe.
Today we take for granted that a telescope allows us to see galaxies millions of light years away. But before its invention, people used nothing more than their naked eye to fathom what took place in the visible sky. So how did four men in the 1500's—of different nationality, age, religion, and class—collaborate to discover that the Earth revolved around the Sun? With this radical discovery that went against the Church, they created our contemporary world—and with it, the uneasy conditions of modern life.
Heaven on Earth is an intimate examination of this scientific family—that of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Fauber juxtaposes their scientific work with insight into their personal lives and political considerations, which shaped their pursuit of knowledge. Uniquely, he shows how their intergenerational collaboration was actually what made the scientific revolution possible.
Ranging from the birth of astronomy and the methods of early scientific research, Fauber reveals the human story that underlies this civilization altering discovery. And, contrary to the competitive nature of research today, collaboration was key to early scientific discovery. Before the rise of university research institutions, deep thinkers only had each other. They created a kind of family, related to each other via intellectual pursuit rather than blood.
These men called each other “brothers,” “fathers,” and “sons,” and laid the foundations of modern science through familial co-work. And though the sixteenth century was far from the an open society for women, There were female pioneers in this “family” as well, including Brahe's sister Sophie, Kepler’s mother, and Galileo's daughter.
Filled with rich characters and sweeping historical scope, Heaven on Earth reveals how the strong connections between these pillars of intellectual history moved science forward—and how, without them, we might have waited a long time for a heliocentric model of the universe.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published December 3, 2019
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244 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 4, 2019
This book very much aims to be in the same vein as Owen Gingerich and Dava Sobel, popularizing and sharing the work of early modern astronomers. In some areas it succeeds, and in others it falls far short.
According to the synopsis, the reader should learn about Nicholaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Most of the text of the book is devoted to Brahe and Galileo, disappointingly.
The author also makes shakily-sourced claims about the characters in the book. Perhaps the most egregious example is describing Georg Rheticus (author of the "Narratio Prima," published three years before his teacher's "De Revolutionibus") as a homosexual, and providing little proof to substantiate this claim, other than a breezy citation. I have strong difficulties with an author that seeks to assign a gender orientation retroactively to people who lived almost 600 years ago - and this lack of strong research grounding is evident throughout the work.
On the positive side, the author makes a reasonable attempt at unpacking some of the extremely complex mathematics in books discussed in the text, and succeeds in some cases. Good attention is given to Brahe and Copernicus' work, but much less attention and description is paid to Kepler's work.
The author also seeks to please both a literary/popular audience and a scientific one, leaving neither satisfied. Language can be briskly informal and loose, glossing over much of the lives of the subjects.
In short, I'd recommend reading Owen Gingerich and Dave Sobel if you'd like an accessible account of early modern astronomers over this book, which disappointed me.
According to the synopsis, the reader should learn about Nicholaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei. Most of the text of the book is devoted to Brahe and Galileo, disappointingly.
The author also makes shakily-sourced claims about the characters in the book. Perhaps the most egregious example is describing Georg Rheticus (author of the "Narratio Prima," published three years before his teacher's "De Revolutionibus") as a homosexual, and providing little proof to substantiate this claim, other than a breezy citation. I have strong difficulties with an author that seeks to assign a gender orientation retroactively to people who lived almost 600 years ago - and this lack of strong research grounding is evident throughout the work.
On the positive side, the author makes a reasonable attempt at unpacking some of the extremely complex mathematics in books discussed in the text, and succeeds in some cases. Good attention is given to Brahe and Copernicus' work, but much less attention and description is paid to Kepler's work.
The author also seeks to please both a literary/popular audience and a scientific one, leaving neither satisfied. Language can be briskly informal and loose, glossing over much of the lives of the subjects.
In short, I'd recommend reading Owen Gingerich and Dave Sobel if you'd like an accessible account of early modern astronomers over this book, which disappointed me.
December 25, 2020
A very strange book. There is much to enjoy here and much that is informative...but there is also a very strange, soap-opera-ish lamentation narrative that begins to drive me more and more crazy. I'm not sure what the author was aiming for, but it feels like this was originally a novel, transformed into a work of non-fiction...that suddenly became trapped in mid-mutation. This becomes especially prominent once the book reaches Galileo. Not quite what I was hoping for in an examination of the men who made the Earth move.
October 9, 2024
“As much as I can, I want to avoid offending good people,” Nicolaus Copernicus demurred when a correspondent urged him to publish his scientific work. As L.S. Fauber recounts in the sweeping and evocative “Heaven on Earth: How Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo Discovered the Modern World,” the Polish polymath ignited his revolution quietly. He set forth his principles of heliocentrism, placing the sun at the center of the universe, in a modest pamphlet he distributed to only a few fellow astronomers.
It’s difficult to overstate how radical Copernicus’s heliocentrism was in the 16th century, when it was taken for granted that the sun and planets orbited Earth. The notion was also heretical, since the Bible includes several references to an unmoving Earth. Still, and in spite of the reticence of the man who conceived it, the theory that the Earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa, gradually and inevitably gained acceptance. One of Fauber’s primary aims in "Heaven on Earth" is to attribute the spread of that idea to three astronomers who came after Copernicus. Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei, Fauber demonstrates, built upon Copernicus’ efforts, and those of the others, to advance the field of astronomy in the face of daunting socio-political obstacles.
Brahe was born several years after Copernicus’s 1543 death, but Copernicus’ pamphlet eventually made its way to the Danish nobleman and astronomer, who further disseminated its ideas. Prussian King Frederick II gifted Brahe with a Danish island, and all of its inhabitants, to build an observatory and research center. As Fauber drily states, “He became the dean of astronomers, not by virtue of brilliance, but by hard work, constant reading, independent wealth, and the forced enslavement of a couple hundred peasants.”
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From the island of Hven, Brahe, inspired by Copernicus, created the Tychonic system, which the author dubs “a chimerical beast”; it held that every planet but Earth orbits the sun, which itself orbits an unmoving Earth. Brahe’s more significant contribution than this deeply incorrect theory was his body of astronomical observations, painstakingly recorded over many years in 24 books.
After Brahe’s death, those books ended up in the hands of his onetime assistant, Johannes Kepler. Using Brahe’s observations, the German astronomer and mathematician developed his laws of planetary motion, his most important achievement, which posited that planets orbit the sun not in a circle, as Copernicus had hypothesized, but in an ellipse. In his youth, the devout Kepler had struggled to reconcile the Copernican system with Scripture. He ended up sidestepping the issue, essentially separating science and religion by making a flimsy distinction between “astronomical context” and “common usage.”
Kepler had a long correspondence with the Italian polymath Galileo Galilei, who, among his many accomplishments, advanced the field of astronomy beyond naked-eye observation by designing a telescope that led him to discover the rings of Saturn and the four moons of Jupiter. Galileo was also an adherent of the Copernican system, and he, more than his predecessors, got into trouble for promoting a theory that ran afoul of religious belief.
Like Copernicus, Galileo worried about what people thought of him. But he regarded popular disapproval with scorn, grousing, “It is necessary to give the Sun motion and Earth rest so as not to confuse the tiny brains of common people.” In 1616, he was admonished by the Roman Inquisition and forbidden from promoting heliocentrism. He was called back to Rome in 1633 to defend his writings and was found “suspect of heresy.” Some of his work was banned, and Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he remained until his death in 1642.
Fauber’s story ends there, but readers ought to continue on to the footnotes to get a full sense of how much the author, who translated many of the original sources, enjoys this material. For instance, after quoting a letter addressing an enemy of Galileo’s in colorful language that seems distinctly modern, Fauber admits of the words used, “I have had a lot of fun translating them, and they are not especially faithful except in tone.” Elsewhere the author confesses to “[indulging] a fair amount of pot-boiling” in describing the scandals surrounding a minor character. Fauber’s chronicling of these four astronomers’ scientific advances and their surrounding intrigues is lively and unfailingly fascinating, down to the footnotes.
It’s difficult to overstate how radical Copernicus’s heliocentrism was in the 16th century, when it was taken for granted that the sun and planets orbited Earth. The notion was also heretical, since the Bible includes several references to an unmoving Earth. Still, and in spite of the reticence of the man who conceived it, the theory that the Earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa, gradually and inevitably gained acceptance. One of Fauber’s primary aims in "Heaven on Earth" is to attribute the spread of that idea to three astronomers who came after Copernicus. Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo Galilei, Fauber demonstrates, built upon Copernicus’ efforts, and those of the others, to advance the field of astronomy in the face of daunting socio-political obstacles.
Brahe was born several years after Copernicus’s 1543 death, but Copernicus’ pamphlet eventually made its way to the Danish nobleman and astronomer, who further disseminated its ideas. Prussian King Frederick II gifted Brahe with a Danish island, and all of its inhabitants, to build an observatory and research center. As Fauber drily states, “He became the dean of astronomers, not by virtue of brilliance, but by hard work, constant reading, independent wealth, and the forced enslavement of a couple hundred peasants.”
About these ads
From the island of Hven, Brahe, inspired by Copernicus, created the Tychonic system, which the author dubs “a chimerical beast”; it held that every planet but Earth orbits the sun, which itself orbits an unmoving Earth. Brahe’s more significant contribution than this deeply incorrect theory was his body of astronomical observations, painstakingly recorded over many years in 24 books.
After Brahe’s death, those books ended up in the hands of his onetime assistant, Johannes Kepler. Using Brahe’s observations, the German astronomer and mathematician developed his laws of planetary motion, his most important achievement, which posited that planets orbit the sun not in a circle, as Copernicus had hypothesized, but in an ellipse. In his youth, the devout Kepler had struggled to reconcile the Copernican system with Scripture. He ended up sidestepping the issue, essentially separating science and religion by making a flimsy distinction between “astronomical context” and “common usage.”
Kepler had a long correspondence with the Italian polymath Galileo Galilei, who, among his many accomplishments, advanced the field of astronomy beyond naked-eye observation by designing a telescope that led him to discover the rings of Saturn and the four moons of Jupiter. Galileo was also an adherent of the Copernican system, and he, more than his predecessors, got into trouble for promoting a theory that ran afoul of religious belief.
Like Copernicus, Galileo worried about what people thought of him. But he regarded popular disapproval with scorn, grousing, “It is necessary to give the Sun motion and Earth rest so as not to confuse the tiny brains of common people.” In 1616, he was admonished by the Roman Inquisition and forbidden from promoting heliocentrism. He was called back to Rome in 1633 to defend his writings and was found “suspect of heresy.” Some of his work was banned, and Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, where he remained until his death in 1642.
Fauber’s story ends there, but readers ought to continue on to the footnotes to get a full sense of how much the author, who translated many of the original sources, enjoys this material. For instance, after quoting a letter addressing an enemy of Galileo’s in colorful language that seems distinctly modern, Fauber admits of the words used, “I have had a lot of fun translating them, and they are not especially faithful except in tone.” Elsewhere the author confesses to “[indulging] a fair amount of pot-boiling” in describing the scandals surrounding a minor character. Fauber’s chronicling of these four astronomers’ scientific advances and their surrounding intrigues is lively and unfailingly fascinating, down to the footnotes.
April 5, 2020
“Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.” ― Jules Verne, A Journey to the Center of the Earth
Before telescopes (Galileo was the first to use a primitive form of telescope), before being able to see beyond the grounded POV on earth, and before being able to think and act independent of religious decrees, how were the moon, sun and stars understood? From observations of the eye and a lot of math. What happened when the observations and the math did not line up with religious teachings? Social and legal problems. Heaven on Earth tells the story of how the astronomers of old, in particular Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler and Galileo, progressively came up with models of our solar system. The book is interesting because it seamlessly combines the academic astronomical discussions with the social and family lives of the astronomers. It also gives a lot of attention to how each astronomers' work and thought process was built on, and influenced by each other.
I had thought the intent of the book was to be for a lay audience looking for a casual science-history read. However, it is not actually a very light or easy read. The language was a bit dense and weirdly over-flowery at times. Many different people from academia and the church are introduced at various times, with a bit of a biographical detour for each one, to the point where it became a bit overwhelming. Prior knowledge of the socio-political-religious particulars of each country at the time probably would have helped with understanding this book a lot more (I lacked this). There are diagrams to illustrate various models and concepts, but they are mostly old-fashioned, sometimes dense, 2D line diagrams that do not always immediately make the concept clear, and you really have to stop and study them. I had also hoped going into the book that there would be some overarching illustration or timeline visually summarizing how the solar system model evolved through each person, but there is none. You have to keep all the different models straight in your own head as you push through the complicated, meandering prose.
Interesting side note - Sophie Brahe, Tycho Brahe's sister, studied astronomy herself, although as a woman her work was never really acknowledged. Tycho Brahe was proud of his 'smart' sister and almost published her letters on astronomy in a book of his. He didn't end up doing it, but wrote up a draft foreword for the book justifying publishing a woman's work (the full text of his 'justification' is embedded in the bibliogoraphy). This was both endearing and sad, as the tone of his 'justification' was basically how one of us would write about our pet dog if we discovered that the dog was intelligent and could speak, and was good at speaking to boot. (Imagine: "Guys, I know it's weird to be publishing what my dog said in a science book, but it's good stuff, I swear, please receive it with an open mind. I know he's a good boy.")
I will say that having recently come out of modern-day science academia myself, it was interesting to note how there were familiar echoes of the ever-present problems of funding and publishing that plague scientists to this day. Some things never change.
September 2, 2021
Pretty interesting but the language the author uses is a bit too poetic and flowery for a non-fiction book. It distracts from the information and confuses the narrative a lot of the time.
June 28, 2023
A great subject on early modern astronomy. I had not known that these careers were connected. The author's work shows access to the letters of these men. That provides lots of insights into their friendships and patrons. However, the level of detail into secondary relationships can wear the reader down. The author bravely tries to explain the early mathematics that was the basis for their progress. The author's diagrams are difficult for a non-astronomer but bravely done. The promise made in the subtitle--how they discovered the modern world--is half met: no real analysis of the impact of the discoveries is spelled out. The book is a contribution in an important subject but not a graceful read. Always brave to address the Galileo story but this book is surprisingly light on his second trial. The author is also, in my opinion, unfair to Robert Bellarmine.
June 1, 2024
A fascinating concept, a book for the science/math layman like myself that combines the discoveries and overlapping narratives of four seminal geniuses (though author L.S. Fauber dislikes & avoids that overused term): Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei. That they accomplished and wrote all they did in the areas of astronomy, optics, physics, geometry and more in this hostile age (16th & early 17th centuries) of plague, violent religious warfare and despotic, often contradictory monarchical and papal rule is truly amazing.
Fauber's writing is idiosyncratic at times as he attempts to "situate these astronomers in their historic time and place while juxtaposing their scientific work with insight into their personal lives and political considerations" (jacket cover quote) to mixed success. He is a professor of Computer Science and Physics so it is probably difficult for him to consistently write on a novice or more accessible level, but his explanations are pretty clear if read carefully (and twice!). For the most part I found his asides and personal observations entertaining or informative, although some were off-putting and confusing. He also includes poetic references, which were refreshing (and welcome after all the math and physics!) and numerous other characters and influences that could be confusing at times as well.
I don't pretend to understand everything in Heaven on Earth (and there's a hefty Appendix section for those who want more detailed theoretical explications) but I was absorbed by the lives of these four scientists and the travails they overcame to uncover the truth of the heliocentric universe as they understood it, especially those who came before Galileo and his telescope! But of course Galileo, as an Italian, had to deal with the Roman Inquisition in consequence of his Copernican teachings, which eventually ordered his house arrest. He was fortunate to avoid torture and execution.
So although Heaven on Earth is kind of a mixed bag and the narrative uneven at times, I still give it 4 stars out of respect for the research and effort that went into integrating four diverse, uber-intellectual personalities and such a challenging, multi-faceted topic.
Fauber's writing is idiosyncratic at times as he attempts to "situate these astronomers in their historic time and place while juxtaposing their scientific work with insight into their personal lives and political considerations" (jacket cover quote) to mixed success. He is a professor of Computer Science and Physics so it is probably difficult for him to consistently write on a novice or more accessible level, but his explanations are pretty clear if read carefully (and twice!). For the most part I found his asides and personal observations entertaining or informative, although some were off-putting and confusing. He also includes poetic references, which were refreshing (and welcome after all the math and physics!) and numerous other characters and influences that could be confusing at times as well.
I don't pretend to understand everything in Heaven on Earth (and there's a hefty Appendix section for those who want more detailed theoretical explications) but I was absorbed by the lives of these four scientists and the travails they overcame to uncover the truth of the heliocentric universe as they understood it, especially those who came before Galileo and his telescope! But of course Galileo, as an Italian, had to deal with the Roman Inquisition in consequence of his Copernican teachings, which eventually ordered his house arrest. He was fortunate to avoid torture and execution.
So although Heaven on Earth is kind of a mixed bag and the narrative uneven at times, I still give it 4 stars out of respect for the research and effort that went into integrating four diverse, uber-intellectual personalities and such a challenging, multi-faceted topic.
June 18, 2024
Pop quiz: what time period was predominately populated by poor peasants, organized by the Catholic Church, but usually couldn’t get a priest who could read and a church with stained glass windows?
If you said the High Renaissance, this book is for you. This depiction is made in the first 2 pages, and I gave up. Not only does this make me suspicious of Catholic hate (which is partially my fault, since we did some goofs sometimes), but it’s also so hilariously inaccurate to the level of education that I think the author read the Wikipedia article on Copernicus and then booted up Skyrim for inspiration on the setting. By 1490, squalid peasant towns, barely getting by on bread and cheese were a lot rarer than this book makes it out to be. That’s some Middle Ages stuff, not Renaissance age. Which is ironic, because this book claims that “college [is] one of the rare places in medieval Europe where an intellect could flourish.” Even if you want to be technical, the medieval period ended in 1488, and it had a lot more intellectual development than is given credit here. Barring the absolute explosion of Catholic theology (I’m assuming the author probably doesn’t mark that as intellectual development), you’ve got architecture, engineering of farm machines, massive developments in smithing, forging, and production of commodities as a whole. Colleges being the sole intellectual refuge is an easy “Dark Ages trope,” but if you’re writing a book, more effort should be made to be accurate.
I spent more time on this review of page 1 than I will on this book, because it is going back to the library.
If you said the High Renaissance, this book is for you. This depiction is made in the first 2 pages, and I gave up. Not only does this make me suspicious of Catholic hate (which is partially my fault, since we did some goofs sometimes), but it’s also so hilariously inaccurate to the level of education that I think the author read the Wikipedia article on Copernicus and then booted up Skyrim for inspiration on the setting. By 1490, squalid peasant towns, barely getting by on bread and cheese were a lot rarer than this book makes it out to be. That’s some Middle Ages stuff, not Renaissance age. Which is ironic, because this book claims that “college [is] one of the rare places in medieval Europe where an intellect could flourish.” Even if you want to be technical, the medieval period ended in 1488, and it had a lot more intellectual development than is given credit here. Barring the absolute explosion of Catholic theology (I’m assuming the author probably doesn’t mark that as intellectual development), you’ve got architecture, engineering of farm machines, massive developments in smithing, forging, and production of commodities as a whole. Colleges being the sole intellectual refuge is an easy “Dark Ages trope,” but if you’re writing a book, more effort should be made to be accurate.
I spent more time on this review of page 1 than I will on this book, because it is going back to the library.
November 7, 2023
Plus another half a star after browsing through the book again. There are some great reviews of this book on this site which illustrate why I can't bump it up to 4 stars. The language is quite a barrier for me as I can often see what I think he is trying to say, but what he actually says doesn't really add up - it's almost as if he has immersed himself into contemporary texts so far that modern English has been left far behind. Browsing through again I began to understand a few of the maths problems which they all encountered, which was interesting.
September 5, 2023
I found this book to be pretty remarkable in how it managed to profile four fascinating figures of the time while glossing over much of what was interesting about them and their work. The writing itself is super scattered and a lot of words are spent on the soap operaish drama of the characters surrounding them. Their astronomical and scientific contributions are almost an afterthought. Perhaps I was just expecting this to be something other than what it is.
June 15, 2020
BThis was an eye-opener for me, reading about these great men of science and asttronomy, how they tried to interpret the skies and understand the workings of the universe, their friendships and rivalries, and how the Church held sway during the era, controlling hearts and minds, dictating what was permissable and what not.
June 7, 2021
As I perceived the author’s intention (a history of the life and times of these three pioneers of modern astronomy rather than a rigorous exposition of their scientific work), I believe the book succeeds well. I suggest readers dust off their text books to re-familiarise themselves with the theory before picking-up the book. Overall, a fun read.
February 7, 2020
Interesting after reading book on early printing and publishing industry (which was essentially concurrent)
March 21, 2020
Weird stuff inside this thing. Weird stuff.
August 6, 2020
This was a solid covering of the astronomical advances of the Scientific Renaissance.
August 20, 2021
The topic of this book is exactly what I’d been looking for. But both as science writing and biography, it was a big fail. The science was unclear, and the biography was scattershot. Very odd.
December 4, 2022
Super fascinating. Worth your time.
May 6, 2025
This is a well-written book with some surprising humour which explores the early astronomers' struggles to get their ideas taken seriously.
August 14, 2025
Busy, circling, switching between eras and geniuses and controversies. Beautiful prose and odd modern alternate. Something for everyone but a lot not.
February 7, 2021
A worthy read. I was not aware of the interactions of the men who studied the heavens and wrote about it. The book provides personal/family information and professional progress.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews