Chasing Venus
Book description
The author of the highly acclaimed Founding Gardeners now gives us an enlightening chronicle of the first truly international scientific endeavor—the eighteenth-century quest to observe the transit of Venus and measure the solar system.
On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of…
Why read it?
1 author picked Chasing Venus as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Wulf brings eighteenth-century Enlightenment science, philosophy, and thought to life like no other contemporary writer.
Chasing Venus is the amazing story of the first global scientific collaboration: the expeditions to measure the transit of Venus across the face of the sun in 1761 and 1769.
The result, if achieved, would enable scientists, for the first time, to calculate the distance from the Earth to the sun. The teams of astronomers and surveyors that fanned out across Europe, North America, and Asia to take the necessary measurements faced adversity ranging from wars and hostile locals to equipment failures and bad weather.…
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