Parallax
Book description
In the dramatic tradition of the best selling "Longitude", this book charts the historical path of observational astronomy's most daunting challenge: measuring the distance to a star. The greatest scientific minds applied themselves in vain to the problem across the millennia, beginning with the ancient Greeks. Not until the 19th…
Why read it?
1 author picked Parallax as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book by a life-long astronomer is a nice, successful attempt to humanize natural philosophers since classical times. It is rare that we find books that dig deeper into the personal struggles, false starts, and wrong conclusions of philosophers (scientists) as they strive at their research incessantly. A recommended read to all astronomy educators and those youth aspiring to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos.
Societies tend to portray high achievers of the past, whether in science, art, or otherwise, as special beings who were infallible genii of their times and that today’s generations may not reach those heights. To…
From Chary's list on stargazers' strife and joy since antiquity.
If you love Parallax...
The Beatles and the 1960s
The Beatles are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history and their career has been the subject of many biographies. Yet the band's historical significance has not received sustained academic treatment to date. In The Beatles and the 1960s, Kenneth L. Campbell uses The…
Want books like Parallax?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Parallax.
Share your top 3 reads of 2024!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
2,359
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Parallax, you might also like...
The Intermediaries
The fascinating history of a daring team of sexologists who built the first trans clinic in the shadow of the Third Reich.
Set in interwar Germany, The Intermediaries tells the forgotten story of the Institute for Sexual Science, the world’s first center for homosexual and transgender rights. Headed by a…
What's Gotten Into You
What's Gotten Into You is a wondrous, wildly ambitious, and vastly entertaining work of popular science that tells the awe-inspiring story of the elements that make up the human body, and how these building blocks of life travelled billions of miles and across billions of years to make us who…
