The clockwork universe : Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the birth of the modern world

Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world. At the end of the seventeenth centuryan age of religious wars, plague, and the Great Fire of London when most people saw the world as falling apart, these earliest scientists saw a world of perfect order. They declared that, chaotic as it looked, the universe was in fact as intricate and perfectly regulated as a clock. This was the tail end of Shakespeares century, when the natural and the supernatural still twined around each other. Disease was a punishment ordained by God, astronomy had not yet broken free from astrology, and the sky was filled with omens. It was a time when little was known and everything was new. These brilliant, ambitious, curious men believed in angels, alchemy, and the devil, and they also believed that the universe followed precise, mathematical lawsa contradiction that tormented them and changed the course of history. *The Clockwork Universe* is the fascinating and compelling story of the bewildered geniuses of the Royal Society, the men who made the modern world. Formats : EPUB New York Times–bestselling Author: An “entertainingly written” account of the scientific revolution that emerged amid the horrors of seventeenth-century London (Kirkus Reviews).In the late seventeenth century, chaos and disease reigned. Streets overflowed with filth and the murder rate was five times higher than it is today. Sickness was divine punishment, astronomy and astrology were indistinguishable, and the world's most brilliant, ambitious, and curious scientists were tormented by contradiction. They believed in angels, devils, and alchemy, yet also believed that the universe followed precise mathematical laws that were as intricate and perfectly regulated as the mechanisms of a great clock.The Clockwork Universe captures these thinkers as they wrestled with nature's most sweeping mysteries. Award-winning writer Edward Dolnick illuminates the fascinating personalities of Newton, Leibniz, Kepler, and others, and vividly animates their momentous struggle during an era when little was known and everything was new—battles of will, faith, and intellect that would change the course of history itself.“Dolnick's book is lively and the characters are vivid.” —The New York Times Book Review“A free-for-all of ideas in a character-rich, historical narrative.” —The Wall Street Journal“Dolnick writes clearly and unpretentiously about science, and writes equally well about the tumultuous historical context for these men's groundbreaking discoveries: the English Civil War, the Thirty Years'War, and in 1665 and 1666 respectively, the Black Plague and the Great Fire of London. Dolnick also offers penetrating portraits of the geniuses of the day, many of them idiosyncratic in the extreme, who offer fertile ground for entertaining writing.” —Publishers Weekly The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world. At the end of the seventeenth centuryan age of religious wars, plague, and the Great Fire of Londonwhen most people saw the world as falling apart, these earliest scientists saw a world of perfect order. They declared that, chaotic as it looked, the universe was in fact as intricate and perfectly regulated as a clock. This was the tail end of Shakespeares century, when the natural land the supernatural still twined around each other. Disease was a punishment ordained by God, astronomy had not yet broken free from astrology, and the sky was filled with omens. It was a time when little was known and everything was new. These brilliant, ambitious, curious men believed in angels, alchemy, and the devil, and they also believed that the universe followed precise, mathematical laws-a contradiction that tormented them and changed the course of history. The Clockwork Universe is the fascinating and compelling story of the bewildered geniuses of the Royal Society, the men who made the modern world. New York Times bestselling author Edward Dolnick brings to light the true story of one of the most pivotal moments in modern intellectual history—when a group of strange, tormented geniuses invented science as we know it, and remade our understanding of the world. Dolnick’s earth-changing story of Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the birth of modern science is at once an entertaining romp through the annals of academic history, in the vein of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, and a captivating exploration of a defining time for scientific progress, in the tradition of Richard Holmes’ The Age of Wonder. Dolnick, former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, presents the true story of a pivotal moment in modern history when a group of strange, tormented geniuses--Isaac Newton chief among them--invented science and remade our understanding of the world A "New York Times" Bestselling author presents the true story of a pivotal moment in modern history when a group of strange, tormented geniuses--Isaac Newton chief among them--invented science and remade our understanding of the world. A 350th anniversary tribute to the Royal Society documents the work of late seventeenth-century scientific geniuses who, in spite of period ignorance, forged lasting understandings about the organization of the universe.