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The Grand Contraption : The World as Myth, Number, and Chance / David Park.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2005Description: 1 online resource (352 p.) : 8 halftones. 41 line illus. 2 tablesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691233185
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 509
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- PREFACE -- ONE Voices from the Sands -- TWO Managing the World -- THREE Guesswork -- FOUR Earth and Heaven -- FIVE Beginnings and Endings -- SIX Philosophy Continued -- INTERLUDE The World Map -- SEVEN Toward a New Astronomy -- EIGHT What Is the World Made Of? -- NINE The Universe Measured -- TEN The Exploding Universe -- ELEVEN The View from Here -- REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX
Summary: The Grand Contraption tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 years of written history to make sense of the world in its cosmic totality, to understand its physical nature, and to know its real and imagined inhabitants. No other book has provided as coherent, compelling, and learned a narrative on this subject of subjects. David Park takes us on an incredible journey that illuminates the multitude of elaborate "contraptions" by which humans in the Western world have imagined the earth they inhabit--and what lies beyond. Intertwining history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the physical sciences, this eminently readable book is, ultimately, about the "grand contraption" we've constructed through the ages in an effort to understand and identify with the universe. According to Park, people long ago conceived of our world as a great rock slab inhabited by gods, devils, and people and crowned by stars. Thinkers imagined ether to fill the empty space, and in the comforting certainty of celestial movement they discerned numbers, and in numbers, order. Separate sections of the book tell the fascinating stories of measuring and mapping the Earth and Heavens, and later, the scientific exploration of the universe. The journey reveals many common threads stretching from ancient Mesopotamians and Greeks to peoples of today. For example, humans have tended to imagine Earth and Sky as living creatures. Not true, say science-savvy moderns. But truth isn't always the point. The point, says Park, is that Earth is indeed the fragile bubble we surmise, and we must treat it with the reverence it deserves.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780691233185

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- PREFACE -- ONE Voices from the Sands -- TWO Managing the World -- THREE Guesswork -- FOUR Earth and Heaven -- FIVE Beginnings and Endings -- SIX Philosophy Continued -- INTERLUDE The World Map -- SEVEN Toward a New Astronomy -- EIGHT What Is the World Made Of? -- NINE The Universe Measured -- TEN The Exploding Universe -- ELEVEN The View from Here -- REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The Grand Contraption tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 years of written history to make sense of the world in its cosmic totality, to understand its physical nature, and to know its real and imagined inhabitants. No other book has provided as coherent, compelling, and learned a narrative on this subject of subjects. David Park takes us on an incredible journey that illuminates the multitude of elaborate "contraptions" by which humans in the Western world have imagined the earth they inhabit--and what lies beyond. Intertwining history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the physical sciences, this eminently readable book is, ultimately, about the "grand contraption" we've constructed through the ages in an effort to understand and identify with the universe. According to Park, people long ago conceived of our world as a great rock slab inhabited by gods, devils, and people and crowned by stars. Thinkers imagined ether to fill the empty space, and in the comforting certainty of celestial movement they discerned numbers, and in numbers, order. Separate sections of the book tell the fascinating stories of measuring and mapping the Earth and Heavens, and later, the scientific exploration of the universe. The journey reveals many common threads stretching from ancient Mesopotamians and Greeks to peoples of today. For example, humans have tended to imagine Earth and Sky as living creatures. Not true, say science-savvy moderns. But truth isn't always the point. The point, says Park, is that Earth is indeed the fragile bubble we surmise, and we must treat it with the reverence it deserves.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Aug 2021)