History of Science Book Recomendations

[wraggy]

I was wondering if it would be possible for people who have recently read a book on the History of Science to recommend that book (if they feel that they honestly can). And could a reason for the recommendation be given in just a few sentences.

[wraggy]

Can anyone recommend a book on the history of the Copernican revolution?





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[James Hannam]

Hi Wraggy,

Thomas Kuhn's classic, The Copernican Revolution is well worth reading and still perhaps the best one volume book on the subject.

You can get cheap second hand copies on line if you don't have it in your local library.

Best wishes

James

[wraggy]

Thanks James. I will keep and eye out for that.

[himself]

Kuhn overstates the whole paradigm thing. See here: thonyc.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/galileo%E2%80%99s-great-bluff-and-part-of-the-reason-why-kuhn-is-wrong/

A concise study on the effects of the telescope is Toby Huff's Intellectual Curiosity, which considers also why no Copernican revolution occurred anywhere else. Discussed here: bedejournal.blogspot.com/2011/08/toby-huffs-dangerous-curiosity.html
(Part of the answer is that nowhere else had even gotten as far as Ptolemaic astronomy. Geometry was a Greek invention. The Chinese, for example, still considered the earth to be a flat blanket with China in the center.)
www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Curiosity-Scientific-Revolution-Perspective/dp/0521170524/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318209054&sr=1-2

[wraggy]

Oct 6, 2011 21:25:19 GMT James Hannam said:

Hi Wraggy,

Thomas Kuhn's classic, The Copernican Revolution is well worth reading and still perhaps the best one volume book on the subject.

You can get cheap second hand copies on line if you don't have it in your local library.

Best wishes

James

Thanks James, I have almost finished reading it and it is very good. Kuhn's diagrams are very helpful in understanding the various models that he discusses. I would have been lost without them.

I recommend the book if anyone is interested in the topic.

Himself's concerns about the whole Paradigm thing are irrelevant to Kuhn's book on the Copernican Revolution.

I now have on order Owen Gingerich's The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler (Masters of Modern Physics)

I think that I have been sucked in by this History of Science thing.

[neodawson]

David C. Lindberg "The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450" is probably one of the best books out there:
www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Western-Science-Philosophical-Institutional/dp/0226482057/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347685440&sr=1-2&keywords=scientific+achievement+medieval

Still reading through this, but Richard C. Dates "The Scientific Achievement of the Middle Ages" maybe worthwhile too:
www.amazon.com/Scientific-Achievement-Middle-Ages/dp/0812210573/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347685440&sr=1-1&keywords=scientific+achievement+medieval

[wraggy]

Sept 15, 2012 5:06:07 GMT neodawson said:

David C. Lindberg "The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450" is probably one of the best books out there.l

Yep, finished that one (2nd ed,) earlier in the year.

Great book. Highly recommended.