Starborn: How the Stars Made Us - and Who We Would Be Without Them - Softcover

Trotta, Roberto

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1529346096 ISBN 13: 9781529346091

Verlag: Basic Books, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Revealing the fundamental connection between the stars and the story of civilization, leading cosmologist Roberto Trotta explores how the night sky has shaped what it means to be human.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Roberto Trotta is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the International School for Advanced Study in Trieste, Italy, and a visiting professor of astrostatistics at Imperial College London. The award-winning author of The Edge of the Sky, he lives under dark skies near Trieste.

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A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

'A stunning and unforgettable voyage through the stars. Almost every page will make you gulp in astonishment' STEPHEN FRY

'Trotta writes like a poet . . . meticulously researched, with an almost limitless archive of stellar trivia' WALL STREET JOURNAL

A sweeping inquiry into how the night sky has shaped what it means to be human.

One of our species' most enduring and universal relationships has been with the night sky itself - yet in the glow of today's artificial lighting, we have forgotten this intimacy with the cosmos.

In Starborn, cosmologist Roberto Trotta reveals how stargazing has shaped the course of civilisation. Origin myths made the Sun into a life-giving creator and the Milky Way a gateway for departed souls. The motion of celestial bodies sustained the illusion that the Earth was at the centre of the cosmos - until looking at them more closely sparked the Scientific Revolution.

Across the ages, the stars have served as clocks, maps, compasses, muses, and gods, defining our laws of reality and our dreams of the sublime. How radically different would we be if we looked to the night sky and saw . . . nothing? Trotta also offers a dramatic alternate history, imagining how a world without stars would change our understanding of science, art, and ourselves.

Revealing the fundamental connections between astronomy and the story of civilisation, Starborn summons us to lose ourselves in the immeasurable vastness above - and will change how you think of the night sky forever.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Basic Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1529346096
• ISBN 13: 9781529346091
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Hachette Ireland, Hachette UK; info@hbgi.ie; ; Castlecourt Centre 8; Dublin 15; D15 XTP3; Irland