The Astronomical Revolution: Copernicus--Kepler--Borelli

by Alexandre Koyré

Lucid scholarly study illuminates contributions of three great pioneers whose 16th- and 17th-century work completely altered humanity's conception of the universe. Includes many key passages from the writings of Copernicus, Kepler, and Borelli. Translated by Dr. R. E. W. Maddison, the Librarian of the Royal Astronomical Society. 59 black-and-white illustrations.

Genres: Science

531 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Aleksandr Vladimirović Kojre, published as Alexandre Koyré was a philosopher and historian of science. He contributed to the development of the history of science in France and to its diffusion in the United States after the Second World War.

In the 1930's, Koyré began the research that made him one of the most eminent historians of twentieth century scientific thought, the first phase of which ended before the Second World War with the publication of the three volumes of Galilean Studies. Koiré became one of the protagonists of French historical epistemology, a new discipline that claimed to study the history of scientific thought as such and as a whole.

Reviews

[Sanjay Varma]

This book gets into the models and the math used by Copernicus, Kepler, and Borelli to understand their observations of the solar system. I was surprised by the amount of complexity and errors which Copernicus brought to his heliocentric model, where he continued to use "epicycles" to explain some of the motions. If you're interested in the details, then this is a good book for you.