The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of ScienceKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 14 lug 2009 - 576 pagine The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science. When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great Romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science—an era whose consequences are with us still. BONUS MATERIAL: This ebook edition includes an excerpt from Richard Holmes's Falling Upwards. |
Dall'interno del libro
Risultati 1-5 di 86
Pagina xv
... scientific future assured . But it turned out that the chemistry master did not believe me . The crystal was too big to be true . He said ( not at all unkindly ) that I had obviously faked it , and slipped a piece of coloured glass into ...
... scientific future assured . But it turned out that the chemistry master did not believe me . The crystal was too big to be true . He said ( not at all unkindly ) that I had obviously faked it , and slipped a piece of coloured glass into ...
Pagina xvi
... scientific objectivity . But I do not believe this was always the case , or that the terms are so mutually exclusive . The notion of wonder seems to be something that once united them , and can still do so . In effect there is Romantic ...
... scientific objectivity . But I do not believe this was always the case , or that the terms are so mutually exclusive . The notion of wonder seems to be something that once united them , and can still do so . In effect there is Romantic ...
Pagina xvii
... scientific ' genius , thirsting and reckless for knowledge , for its own sake and perhaps at any cost . This neo- Faustian idea , celebrated by many of the imaginative writers of the period , including Goethe and Mary Shelley , is ...
... scientific ' genius , thirsting and reckless for knowledge , for its own sake and perhaps at any cost . This neo- Faustian idea , celebrated by many of the imaginative writers of the period , including Goethe and Mary Shelley , is ...
Pagina xviii
... Scientific instru- ments played an increasingly important role in this process of revelation , allowing man not merely to extend his senses passively - using the telescope , the microscope , the barometer - but to intervene actively ...
... Scientific instru- ments played an increasingly important role in this process of revelation , allowing man not merely to extend his senses passively - using the telescope , the microscope , the barometer - but to intervene actively ...
Pagina xix
... scientific revolution of the late seventeenth century had promulgated an essentially private , elitist , specialist form of knowledge . Its lingua franca was Latin , and its common currency mathematics . Its audience was a small ( if ...
... scientific revolution of the late seventeenth century had promulgated an essentially private , elitist , specialist form of knowledge . Its lingua franca was Latin , and its common currency mathematics . Its audience was a small ( if ...
Sommario
1 | |
Herschel on the Moon | 60 |
Balloonists in Heaven | 125 |
Herschel Among the Stars | 163 |
Mungo Park in Africa | 211 |
Davy on the Gas | 235 |
Dr Frankenstein and the Soul | 305 |
Davy and the Lamp | 337 |
Sorcerer and Apprentice | 381 |
Young Scientists | 435 |
Epilogue | 467 |
Bibliography | 485 |
References | 497 |
Acknowledgements | 526 |
Altre edizioni - Visualizza tutto
The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty ... Richard Holmes Anteprima limitata - 2010 |
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and ... Richard Holmes Visualizzazione estratti - 2008 |
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and ... Richard Holmes Anteprima non disponibile - 2009 |
Parole e frasi comuni
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