Download Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens AudioBook Free
The writer of the highly acclaimed Founding Gardeners now offers us an enlightening chronicle of the first truly international clinical endeavor - the 18th century quest to see the transit of Venus and measure the solar system. On June 6, 1761, the entire world paused to see a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between your earth and the sun in greater than a century. During that observation, astronomers could assess the size of the solar system - but only if they could put together data from many different points of the globe, all recorded through the short period of the transit. Overcoming incredible probabilities and politics strife, astronomers from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the North american colonies create observatories in remote control edges of the world, and then have their initiatives thwarted by unstable weather and warring armies. Luckily, transits of Venus occur in pairs: eight years later, the scientists could have another chance to be successful. Chasing Venus brings to life the personalities of the 18th century astronomers who embarked upon this intricate and essential clinical opportunity, painting a vivid portrait of the collaborations, the rivalries, and the volatile international politics that hindered them at every turn. In the end, what they achieved would change our conception of the universe and would permanently alter the type of clinical research.
