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Wooden Books
Güneş Sisteminde Tesadüf
Bir Merkür günü gerçekten iki Merkür yılına mı denk geliyor? Venüs nasıl her sekiz yılda bir dev bir beş köşeli yıldız çiziyor? Gezegenler gizili bir küreler armonisine mi sahip? Güneş sistemi teorisyeni John Martineau bu müthiş kitapta enfes görseller ve şaşırtıcı yeni araştırmalar sunuyor.
60 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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912 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
September 5, 2015
I am all for books of little anecdotes concerning the wonder of outer space, so I thought this book would be right up my alley. This book is part of the Wooden Books series, a beautifully-put-together collection of volumes covering topics - according to the back jacket - from feng shui and grammar to love, 'the miracle of trees,' dragons, and weaving. Hmmm.
There are some very neat points in this book, but things tend to fall too far towards the New Age numerology side of the spectrum for me to really get on board. It's undoubtedly cool that the solar system is so chock-full of repeating proportions - when you see ice halos around the sun it's an exact replica of the orbits of Mercury and Venus; the Trojan asteroid clusters form an equilateral triangle with Jupiter, and several equilateral triangles inscribed within it gives you the orbit of the earth. But the pseudo-mystical way this was presented was a little off putting to me, and I would much rather the space been dedicated to ideas on why these proportions would occur. The closest we get to that is a rather baffling declaration near the end that all these harmonies "probably constitute evidence for the reality of a conscious quantum holographic universe." Which I dunno, maybe? I know there's a hypothesis that our universe is holographic, and I'll be all for reading about this. But this book pretty much tosses around some pretty illustrations and ambiguous numerology and then drops that idea without ever explaining what it really means or how it fits into anything else.
There's interesting stuff in here, absolutely, but it almost felt condescending at times. It tried too hard to be profound with a subject that's profound without need for embellishment.
There are some very neat points in this book, but things tend to fall too far towards the New Age numerology side of the spectrum for me to really get on board. It's undoubtedly cool that the solar system is so chock-full of repeating proportions - when you see ice halos around the sun it's an exact replica of the orbits of Mercury and Venus; the Trojan asteroid clusters form an equilateral triangle with Jupiter, and several equilateral triangles inscribed within it gives you the orbit of the earth. But the pseudo-mystical way this was presented was a little off putting to me, and I would much rather the space been dedicated to ideas on why these proportions would occur. The closest we get to that is a rather baffling declaration near the end that all these harmonies "probably constitute evidence for the reality of a conscious quantum holographic universe." Which I dunno, maybe? I know there's a hypothesis that our universe is holographic, and I'll be all for reading about this. But this book pretty much tosses around some pretty illustrations and ambiguous numerology and then drops that idea without ever explaining what it really means or how it fits into anything else.
There's interesting stuff in here, absolutely, but it almost felt condescending at times. It tried too hard to be profound with a subject that's profound without need for embellishment.
October 4, 2023
This book demonstrates some fundamental geometric and harmonic relationships in our own solar system which have yet to be properly understood.
Why are the sun and the moon the same size in the sky and why does the planet Venus weave the same 5-8-13 dance in the sky around us that most plants display here on Earth? These questions and others are looked into in this short, easy-to-read book.
Even if you're not convinced by the coincidences outlined in the book, some of the mathematical coincidences are quite striking such as dividing each number in the Fibonacci sequence by the number that follows it (the Fibonacci sequence is 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc) tends towards the Golden Ratio.
Why are the sun and the moon the same size in the sky and why does the planet Venus weave the same 5-8-13 dance in the sky around us that most plants display here on Earth? These questions and others are looked into in this short, easy-to-read book.
Even if you're not convinced by the coincidences outlined in the book, some of the mathematical coincidences are quite striking such as dividing each number in the Fibonacci sequence by the number that follows it (the Fibonacci sequence is 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc) tends towards the Golden Ratio.
August 1, 2012
Very cool read. You know there's more going on than what meets the eye, but sometimes its hard to find the right source for learning that. Well, this is the right source. I won't spoil any details, but its incredible that musical notes can be found in the cosmos. I wish someone would add an artistic twist to these notes and we could hear the song of Jupiter! It took billions of years for us to evolve, and we're just now beginning to understand what created us.
On a side note, after seeing so many pentagrams drawn in space, it makes me wonder what all those first Americans were doing with their mason symbols...
On a side note, after seeing so many pentagrams drawn in space, it makes me wonder what all those first Americans were doing with their mason symbols...
September 7, 2008
This book changed my life. Martineau is a visual artist and an explorer in the finest sense. His ability to illustrate the intricacies of the universe, through prose and pencil drawings, illuminates his readers' understanding of the cosmos. He blends visual aspects into this book, small and large, of planetary rotations set in direct mathematical correspondence to musical octaves and scales.
March 15, 2014
i want to like the wooden books series, given their gorgeous illustrations and slim, accessible formats, but find them to be rather flat and unfulfilling.
a little book of coincidence in the solar system presents some intriguing ideas regarding planetary orbits and mathematics - but strays much too far into the realm of pseudo-new age thinking to make it palatable. it reads like intelligent design for the sandal-wearing set.
a little book of coincidence in the solar system presents some intriguing ideas regarding planetary orbits and mathematics - but strays much too far into the realm of pseudo-new age thinking to make it palatable. it reads like intelligent design for the sandal-wearing set.
April 11, 2013
What an amazing book! I had never considered the "coincidence" that our Moon is exactly the right size, and exactly the right distance from our planet, to cover the disk of the sun in eclipses. It is neither larger nor smaller to our eyes. There are lots more coincidences covered in this book. The Wooden Books series bring a fresh perspective to our experience of the world.
April 9, 2022
Interesting little book about our solar system and the planets and moons etc in it. Involving geometry etc its kind of hard to follow but was quasi educational. Quote from the book that I liked:
these probably constitute evidence for the reality of a conscious holographic universe.
Anyway I got the idea to read this book from another book I'm reading, Sir Paul McCartney's the Lyrics volume 1 and 2 which is great and I'll get to later in reviewing. (Beatles, Wings, solo)
I wonder if it had anything to do with the Beatles album Revolver? Cool!!
these probably constitute evidence for the reality of a conscious holographic universe.
Anyway I got the idea to read this book from another book I'm reading, Sir Paul McCartney's the Lyrics volume 1 and 2 which is great and I'll get to later in reviewing. (Beatles, Wings, solo)
I wonder if it had anything to do with the Beatles album Revolver? Cool!!
May 8, 2021
does anybody have any acid
February 13, 2021
For those hopeful of finding greater purpose within scopes of sacred geometry. This book illuminates harmonious coincidences within the Universe, otherwise overlooked by the modern cosmology.
December 23, 2024
The kiss of Venus has got me on the go
She scored a bullseye in the early morning glow
Early morning glow
Packed with illusions, our world is turned around
This golden circle has a most harmonic sound
Harmonic sound
...
She scored a bullseye in the early morning glow
Early morning glow
Packed with illusions, our world is turned around
This golden circle has a most harmonic sound
Harmonic sound
...
August 23, 2017
The music of the spheres has puzzled some of the best minds in history. If you love mystical arithmetic, this is one to read.
You know how the Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, right? And the Moon is 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun? And that is what makes an exact total eclipse possible. Ah, but did you know that the relative orbital periods of Venus and the Earth describe the same relationships found in Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Section? These and other fun facts abound in this slim volume. Amaze your friends at dinner parties!
You know how the Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, right? And the Moon is 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun? And that is what makes an exact total eclipse possible. Ah, but did you know that the relative orbital periods of Venus and the Earth describe the same relationships found in Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Section? These and other fun facts abound in this slim volume. Amaze your friends at dinner parties!
September 28, 2011
The coincidences referred to in the title are the arrangements of the planets and sun of our solar system. This book points out many measurement relationships that correspond to platonic solids, musical ratios, and other geometric relationships familiar to students of sacred geometry.
There are lots of pretty spirograph like pictures mapping orbits against eachother, as well as showing other relationships.
Reading this book definitely gave me the sacred geometry flavored buzz of pleasure.
I see in other reviews here that people would like to have had some explanations of why these relationships occur. That's the point of the title-- that our contemporary science has no explanation for these relationships and that they must therefore be coincidences.
If you are looking for explanations you will have to look outside of mainstream science. Have a look at Michael Schneider: A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe; John Michell: How the World is Made-- the Story of Creation According to Sacred Geometry.
There are lots of pretty spirograph like pictures mapping orbits against eachother, as well as showing other relationships.
Reading this book definitely gave me the sacred geometry flavored buzz of pleasure.
I see in other reviews here that people would like to have had some explanations of why these relationships occur. That's the point of the title-- that our contemporary science has no explanation for these relationships and that they must therefore be coincidences.
If you are looking for explanations you will have to look outside of mainstream science. Have a look at Michael Schneider: A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe; John Michell: How the World is Made-- the Story of Creation According to Sacred Geometry.
December 1, 2020
I picked up this book out of curiosity and it is indeed a curious little thing. It starts by talking about the progress done in astronomy from the earliest moments to the present times, broaching the subject of alchemy and what it meant to be an astronomer/astrologer at the beginning of science. But then it turns a bit towards numerology, and it kind of lost me there. The author compares the orbits of planets and satellites, creates beautiful spirograph-like diagrams and tries to draw the conclusion that this is more than a coincidence. It's true that we still don't know everything, but I think the conclusions drawn were a bit of a stretch.
August 20, 2007
i find that thease little books that fit in to any coat pocket is something to read on the train,plain, car..(passinger) this little gem is about the planets and the info that relates to earth and humans there is a range of them from numbers, shapes, ley-lines.etc..
September 11, 2014
A friend gifted me this book a long time ago and it 's been very inspiring. Lots of pretty diagrams and numbers.
May 22, 2025
to many kissing analogies
January 26, 2025
A recommendation coming from the unlikeliest of places – Paul McCartney in his autobiographical The Lyrics – John Martineau's A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System is a brief introduction to a number of geometrical and mathematical symmetries and harmonies that occur in planetary orbits and other astronomical features.
After Beatle Paul's recommendation, I was disappointed that there was not too much on the musical front; Martineau mentions how various 'coincidences' track across to musical notation, but 'the music of the spheres' is only addressed briefly. Instead, the geometrical patterns of planetary orbits and various mathematical curiosities which emerge (Fibonacci sequences, the Golden Ratio, etc.) form the bulk of the content. The book is short and sweet at barely more than 50 pages (including illustrations), and doesn't really go into any of the points it raises.
That said, it is consistently fascinating to think on the coincidences that occur and, as Martineau says as early as page 2, begin to wonder whether it is coincidence – or perhaps design. A note of disquiet is produced in the book when it begins to lean more towards the New Age type of nonsense rather than solid mathematical rigour ("clear evidence of very ancient magic," Martineau writes on page 30, in his most overt blunder on this front), but thankfully the book stays sensible for the most part. It does leave the reader a little wary, however.
Towards the end of the book, Martineau remarks how these symmetries and harmonies don't seem to exist in other star systems (pg. 38), but that here, on "a planet of conscious observers", they do (pg. 52). He ends by saying what we're all thinking at that point: "Does it in some way have something to do with 'why we are here'?" (pg. 54). While the sceptical side of me wants to remind myself that you can find patterns in anything if you look long enough, and that there may be confirmation bias at work, other mathematical patterns which aren't reflected in the planets, the fact remains that these 'coincidences' do exist and are verifiable. Despite myself, I did find in reading A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System that I was unapologetically thrilled by the thought of a hidden hand coding the universe, and how one day the meaning of that might be unlocked.
After Beatle Paul's recommendation, I was disappointed that there was not too much on the musical front; Martineau mentions how various 'coincidences' track across to musical notation, but 'the music of the spheres' is only addressed briefly. Instead, the geometrical patterns of planetary orbits and various mathematical curiosities which emerge (Fibonacci sequences, the Golden Ratio, etc.) form the bulk of the content. The book is short and sweet at barely more than 50 pages (including illustrations), and doesn't really go into any of the points it raises.
That said, it is consistently fascinating to think on the coincidences that occur and, as Martineau says as early as page 2, begin to wonder whether it is coincidence – or perhaps design. A note of disquiet is produced in the book when it begins to lean more towards the New Age type of nonsense rather than solid mathematical rigour ("clear evidence of very ancient magic," Martineau writes on page 30, in his most overt blunder on this front), but thankfully the book stays sensible for the most part. It does leave the reader a little wary, however.
Towards the end of the book, Martineau remarks how these symmetries and harmonies don't seem to exist in other star systems (pg. 38), but that here, on "a planet of conscious observers", they do (pg. 52). He ends by saying what we're all thinking at that point: "Does it in some way have something to do with 'why we are here'?" (pg. 54). While the sceptical side of me wants to remind myself that you can find patterns in anything if you look long enough, and that there may be confirmation bias at work, other mathematical patterns which aren't reflected in the planets, the fact remains that these 'coincidences' do exist and are verifiable. Despite myself, I did find in reading A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System that I was unapologetically thrilled by the thought of a hidden hand coding the universe, and how one day the meaning of that might be unlocked.
May 5, 2021
Too small! Too short!
Loved it from its first sentence (To people who have grown up in a world devoid of a magic cosmology) to its last (Cosmology can seriously improve your health.) And so many bits in between! The words! The diagrams! The sacred numbers and geometry, the wonder of it all...
'Our planet and we ourselves are made up of reorganised smoky stardust, a fact long taught by ancient cultures. We now know that stardust itself is made simply from fizzballs , highly organised flickering whirlpools of light, long ago squeezed together inside stars.'
Fizzballs! The word and the connotations have been fizzing through my mind over and over...
'Watch planets for any length of time and, far from moving in any simple way, they lurch around like drunken bees, waltzing and whirling. As two planets pass, or kiss, each appears to the other to retrogress, or go backwards against the stars for a certain length of time.' Planetary passes within their dance are thereon referred to as kisses. Love this book.
Too small! Too short! Make A Big Book of Coincidence in the Solar System!
I read this thanks to a diagram and reference to it in Physics of Astrology vol 4 by Nadia Smirnova-Mierau.
Loved it from its first sentence (To people who have grown up in a world devoid of a magic cosmology) to its last (Cosmology can seriously improve your health.) And so many bits in between! The words! The diagrams! The sacred numbers and geometry, the wonder of it all...
'Our planet and we ourselves are made up of reorganised smoky stardust, a fact long taught by ancient cultures. We now know that stardust itself is made simply from fizzballs , highly organised flickering whirlpools of light, long ago squeezed together inside stars.'
Fizzballs! The word and the connotations have been fizzing through my mind over and over...
'Watch planets for any length of time and, far from moving in any simple way, they lurch around like drunken bees, waltzing and whirling. As two planets pass, or kiss, each appears to the other to retrogress, or go backwards against the stars for a certain length of time.' Planetary passes within their dance are thereon referred to as kisses. Love this book.
Too small! Too short! Make A Big Book of Coincidence in the Solar System!
I read this thanks to a diagram and reference to it in Physics of Astrology vol 4 by Nadia Smirnova-Mierau.
September 16, 2017
I've owned this book for about 13 years and it is never far from my fingertips. It describes fundamental relationships between the bodies in our solar system and how they can be explained mathematically. Additionally, these relationships have musical correlates, as do the frequencies emitted by the planets themselves and the frequencies of their synods, sometimes producing exquisite two-dimensional patterns over time. The final diagram depicts the earth's orientations as drawn against a celestial sphere of our immediate cosmos -- including the Pleiades and Sirius -- describing a fundamental 60-degree cosmological make-up reflected by our system of seconds, minutes and hours. This is just scraping the surface of the information contained in this tiny volume -- written simple language -- that evokes a sense of wonder in the reader and hunger for more information of this type.
January 16, 2021
If you want a quick read on some of the universe's astronomical "coincidences," then this is the little book for you. It is a well designed book (front, back and inner covers). My big take away was the days of the week being named after the quickest planetary body to the slowest, and how it forms a heptagram. It briefly touches on the moon and sun being the same size from the perspective from earth. You will learn much about these coincidences, but very little as to "why" they are here which still remains to this day a mystery.
November 30, 2022
Beautiful little book that shows many of the amazing 'coincidences' in the universe and the planetary orbits. Great illustrations and short descriptions work well together and you will learn more about how it appears the universe was put together in an artistic way. This book is one that was recommended on Doug Wilson's podcast, never would have picked it up without his recommendation, but its worth a read.
February 27, 2024
This book was fun to read and does imply that things in nature are somehow influenced by a code, it is entry level stuff but still it has interesting information, the illustrations are really good and the production of the book is excellent, mind you is a short book, and you should be able to read in a day or two.
October 18, 2025
The Sun and the Moon are the same size for now. The Moon used to appear to be much larger and, in time, will look smaller. Why? It is, very slowly, moving away from the Earth and the further away it goes, the longer our days will become. Not for hunnerts, as we say in Scotland, of years. On a final note, 42.
January 1, 2024
A gorgeously illustrated guide to the holographic patterns of our solar system. A must-read for any student of geometry, stellar and planetary astronomy, or really any humble human contemplating their place in it All.
January 1, 2018
Wow!! but where does it take me? What can I do with this data? However I just love the beauty of the math.
Read
November 17, 2019A delightful and intriguing read for me.
December 20, 2020
If You Need Proof...
...of a ‘higher power’ look no further... than this little book of numbers, shapes, and harmonies... neither Chance nor Necessity can explain the numbers...
...of a ‘higher power’ look no further... than this little book of numbers, shapes, and harmonies... neither Chance nor Necessity can explain the numbers...
December 31, 2020
Both exhilarating and confusing af at times due to the gatekeeping style language used in some sections. Listening to the sounds of Jupiter also makes this even more of a magical read.
February 26, 2022
What a fun little book!
March 19, 2022
Paul McCartney referenced this book in his Lyrics book (re "The Kiss of Venus"), so it's also coincidental (or just an algorithm) that Goodreads suggested the Lyrics book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews