Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (Great Discoveries Series) Book

List of Diagrams     17
Notes     19
Why the Universe Screams     21
Exegesis: Osiander's Preface and I.1-4     25
Once upon a time, beneath an unspotted sun
Provenance of the preface
Rev. I.1: What ought to be must be
Spherical finitude
I.2: The spherical Earth
Starry proofs
I.3: Proportioning water on the Earth
I.4: Eternal circles, circles around circles
The ecliptic and the Zodiac
The equinoxes
Ecliptic wriggles
A complaint against contrary movements
I.4 (cont'd): "We must however confess that the movements are circular"
On guard
What We Believed: Cosmology     53
Centeredness as inevitability
Twelve impieties
Ptolemy's justifications
Polish courtyards
The dead hand
Epicycles
Diagram of a water-mill
Equants
The parable of the Alphonsine Tables
One thing with many effects.
Exegesis: I.5     79
What We Believed: Motion     80
Earth's appropriate position
Natural versus compulsory motion
Willed perfection
"Circular movement belongs to wholes and rectilinear to parts"
Stillness
Exegesis: I.5 (cont'd)-I.9     90
I.5: "Does the Earth have a circular movement?"
I.6: The geometry of heavenly immensity
I.7-9: Copernicus almost defines gravity
A digression on Neptune's atmosphere
A sub-digression on the Coriolis Effect
"Then what should we say about the clouds?"
I.9: Centering the sun.
The Limits of Observation in 1543     100
How easy itused to be to save the appearances!
Foucault's pendulum
"Bequeathed like a legacy"
"Binoculars are usually needed"
Exegesis: I.10-14     109
I.10: Simplifying and rearranging the heavenly spheres
I.11: The Earth's three movements
I.12-14: Some theorems of plane and spherical geometry
Orbits of Venus     113
"In line with the Water-Bearer's testicles"
Parallax
Another perfect circle
"Then what will they say is contained in all this space?"
"An easier and more convenient demonstration"
"More complicated than the Ptolemaic system"
"But now the Telescope manifestly shows these horns"
Exegesis: Book II     136
II.1-2: Uncentering definitions
II.3-14: Tables and transformations
What We Believed: Scriptures     142
The parable of the lodestone
Exempt from re-examination
The status of the sun when Lot came to Zo'ar
"Aided by spiritual insight"
Twenty-four centuries since Creation
Axioms of Scriptural astronomy
The leaden square
"The Sun did run much more than 7,000 miles"
Exegesis: Book III     161
III.1-3: Spica's variables
III.3-4: The lost ellipse
III.5-26: Eccentrics, epicycles and an uncentered Earth.
Silent to the End     168
"A pale, insignificant figure"
Postludes to an occupation
Fish days and meat days in Gynopolis
"Nobody shall have any proper pretext to suspect evil of me hereafter"
Safe at last
Exegesis: Book IV     180
IV.2-4: "I say that the lunar appearances agree"
IV.4-32: Distances, diameters, volumes
The Pillars of Hercules     185
"I doubt not that certain savants have taken great offense"
To the Eighth Circle
Herschel's looming universe
Exegesis: Book V     192
V.1-5: The Martian circles
V.4-36: Rescuing Mercury from injury and disparagement
Assessments     203
"Rotting in a coffer"
False supposition, true demonstration
Exegesis: Book VI     206
VI. 1-8: Inclination, obliquation, deviation
VI.9: "Except that in the case of Mercury..."
Simplicity     212
Astrologers' shameful recourse
Epilogue to Mercury's obliquation
Back to iron-grubbing
But the universe screamed
Burnings     221
The Medicean planets
Resolutely Copernican
"How great would have been thy joy"
"Newly emerging values still seeking intellectual justification"
"Safely back on a solid Earth"
Chronology     235
Glossary     239
Sources     247
Bibliography     287
Acknowledgments     295