The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

by Edward Dolnick
The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

by Edward Dolnick

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Overview

“Edward Dolnick’s smoothly written history of the scientific revolution tells the stories of the key players and events that transformed society.” — Charlotte Observer

From New York Times bestselling author Edward Dolnick, 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.

At a time when the world was falling apart— in an age of religious wars, plague, and the Great Fire of London—a group of men looked around them and saw a world of perfect order. Chaotic as it looked, these earliest scientists declared, the universe was in fact an intricate and perfectly regulated clockwork. This was the tail-end of Shakespeare’s century, and these were brilliant, ambitious, confused, conflicted men. They believed in angels and alchemy and the devil, and they believed that the universe followed precise, mathematical laws. This is the story of the bewildered geniuses who made the modern world.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061719523
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 02/07/2012
Series: P.S. Series
Pages: 400
Sales rank: 187,665
Product dimensions: 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Edward Dolnick is the author of Down the Great Unknown, The Forger’s Spell, and the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist. A former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, he lives with his wife near Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Chronology xiii

Preface xv

Part 1 Chaos

1 London, 1660 3

2 Satan's Claws 7

3 The End of the World 13

4 "When Spotted Death Ran Arm'd Through Every Street" 20

5 Melancholy Streets 25

6 Fire 29

7 God at His Drawing Table 34

8 The Idea That Unlocked the World 42

9 Euclid and Unicorns 50

10 The Boys' Club 58

11 To the Barricades! 66

12 Dogs and Rascals 72

13 A Dose of Poison 76

14 Of Mites and Men 83

15 A Play Without an Audience 90

16 All in Pieces 97

Part 2 Hope and Monsters

17 Never Seen Until This Moment 105

18 Flies as Big as a Lamb 114

19 From Earthworms to Angels 120

20 The Parade of the Horribles 126

21 "Shuddering Before the Beautiful" 129

22 Patterns Made with Ideas 135

23 God's Strange Cryptography 140

24 The Secret Plan 145

25 Tears of Joy 152

26 Walrus with a Golden Nose 157

27 Cracking the Cosmic Safe 162

28 The View from the Crow's Nest 169

29 Sputnik in Orbit, 1687 177

30 Hidden in Plain Sight 182

31 Two Rocks and a Rope 187

32 A Fly on the Wall 190

33 "Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare" 194

34 Here Be Monsters! 200

35 Barricaded Against the Beast 207

36 Out of the Whirlpool 212

Part 3 Into the Light

37 All Men Are Created Equal 219

38 The Miracle Years 225

39 All Mystery Banished 233

40 Talking Dogs and Unsuspected Powers 237

41 The World in Close-Up 244

42 When the Cable Snaps 253

43 The Best of All Possible Feuds 259

44 Battle's End 266

45 The Apple and the Moon 271

46 A Visit to Cambridge 278

47 Newton Bears Down 281

48 Trouble with Mr. Hooke 288

49 The System of the World 293

50 Only Three People 297

51 Just Crazy Enough 301

52 In Search of God 307

53 Conclusion 314

Acknowledgments 321

Notes 323

Bibliography 353

Illustration Credits 361

Index 363

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