The Transit of Venus

Book Description

The Transit of Venus is considered Shirley Hazzard's most brilliant novel. It tells the story of two orphan sisters, Caroline and Grace Bell, as they leave Australia to start a new life in post-war England. What happens to these young women--seduction and abandonment, marriage and widowhood, love and betrayal--becomes as moving and wonderful and yet as predestined as the transits of the planets themselves. Gorgeously written and intricately constructed, Hazzard's novel is a story of place: Sydney, London, New York, Stockholm; of time: from the fifties to the eighties; and above all, of women and men in their passage through the displacements and absurdities of modern life.

"Engrossing, masterly. . . . Combines the satisfaction of a family saga . . . with a highly structured plot reminiscent of Greek tragedy."-- Gail Godwin, The New York Times Book Review

"A wonderfully mysterious book. . . . Both plot and characters are many layered. Unforgettably rich."-- Anne Tyler, The New Republic

"Luminous. . . . Almost without flaw. Aphoristic and iridescent, her language turns paragraphs into events."-- Webster Schott, The Washington Post Book World

Customer Reviews:

Sooo strange!.......2007-06-07

I'm obviously not a very bright person as most of this book was a struggle to understand what on earth she was on about. I've read the glowing praises of the majority of the reviewers and can only conclude that it's far too clever for my simple understanding. To read and enjoy a book, I must have some liking for some of the characters, but the way M/s Hazzard rushes on like a freight train, bombarding the reader with unfinished sentences and words which would require even a moderately well educated person to have to dive for the dictionary, is just too much for me. I've decided that life is too short for me to waste any of my limited remaining years battling with this smarty pants, clever book, and to enjoy the many books that I've yet to read.

A Romance, a Coming of Age Story that continues into Middle Age.......2006-11-22

It is almost audacious of me to attempt a review of this book. I don't have anything close to the command of language that Hazzard and some of her dedicated reviewers here do. Nevertheless, this is a favorite book of mine, despite what are, in my perception, some flaws, and I wanted to put in a good word for it.

First of all, let me assure my fellow readers that this book is in fact a romance, though a complex one. When I first read the book some 20 years ago, I was a young woman coming of age, on my own for the first time, and it spoke to me in a very personal way. Since then I've continued to dip into the book, parting the pages at random, to enjoy the author's language and her original characterizations, and particularly her descriptions of what it was like to come of age in a pre-feminist era. Here's a description from the novel, abridged and quoted somewhat out of order, of a working class career girl's life in the 1950's.

"Girls were getting up all over London....It is hard to say how or why they stood it, the cold room, the wet walk to the bus, the office in which they had no prospects and no fun....All the girls of London shuddered, waiting for the bus. Some had knitted themselves unbecoming brown Balaclavas, with worse mittens to match. Some held a boiled egg, still hot, in their glove--which warmed the hand, and could be eaten cold at lunchtime in the ladies' room."

I also enjoyed the novel's unusual evocations of time and place--- a child's upbringing in Australia; rural England during WWII; a WWII prison camp in Japan; the British workplace in the 1950's. Given the number of negative reviews on this site, I must warn that Hazzard examines these eras briefly, and the philosophic currents of each are merely alluded to, not explained. Hazzard trusts her reader to be familiar with the attitudes and undercurrents of each era, and simply alludes to them, while keeping her focus tightly on the characters in the novel.

Hazzard introduces scientific fact, political tragedy, and geographical oddities in a poetic way, which inspired me to further research: The best example of this her description of the Transit of Venus, an astronomical occurrence and the central metaphor for the novel; and a visit to Avebury Circle, a prehistoric monument which is rather less well known than Stonehenge.

I have two major frustrations with the novel.

1. That Caro is seen by the author as someone so morally upright and exemplary in character as to be practically separate from the rest of humanity. I found myself resenting Caro's beauty and moral perfection, and waiting for Howard Roark to bust in through the door with the rest of the Ayn Rand characters.

2. That, even as I repeatedly congratulate myself for finding the clue on the first page, I was incredibly impatient with the vagueness of the description on the last page. For years I simply wasn't completely sure how the novel ended. I trust that I've figured it out now, but I'd be curious to know if anyone else struggled a bit with the ending.

Ms. Austin Would Be Pleased.......2006-02-24

While taking a rather different direction from Jane Austin, the picture of shifting class options, alignments, and calculations reminds one of Pride and Prejudice. Shirley Hazzard's writing is lucid and clear, her comparisons illuminating. Although not as much so as the Great Fire, it is a book of great economy in telling a great story well.

Underappreciated from the Land Down Under.......2006-01-22

Shirley Hazzard is Australian by birth, but her extensive life experiences make her a wise world citizen. After winning the USA National Book Critics' Award in 1980, this book should get more attention than it does. An amazing love triangle forms the plot, but it's the writing that takes my breath away, as well as the post WWII history on three different continents and the vividly drawn characters. I'll admit I had trouble getting into it at first, but persistence paid off so that by the startling revelations at the end of the book, I was ready to start it again.

I think Ms. Hazzard owes me an apology........2005-10-20

The only reason I finished "The Transit of Venus" was the hope of any improvement. This book took away two hours of my life-two hours that I can never earn back by reading true literature. The story (is there a story?) is dreadful. The sentence structures, the paragraph performances, the offered descriptions assist in one wondering if Ms. Hazzard is merely attempting to impress the audience with her self-perceived insights. I will never recommend this book to any audience. Ms. Hazzard and her publisher should refund my money.

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Venus in Transit doesn't cast a long shadow
Incomplete history, muddled science
Interesting, simple astronomy
A syzygy for everyone
From Unobserved to Key Measurements to Celestial Joy

Venus in Transit
Eli Maor
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691115893

Book Description

In 2004, Venus crossed the sun's face for the first time since 1882. Some did not bother to step outside. Others planned for years, reserving tickets to see the transit in its entirety. But even this group of astronomers and experience seekers were attracted not by scientific purpose but by the event's beauty, rarity, and perhaps--after this book--history. For previous sky-watchers, though, transits afforded the only chance to determine the all-important astronomical unit: the mean distance between earth and sun.

Eli Maor tells the intriguing tale of the five Venus transits previously observed and the fantastic efforts made to record them. This is a story of heroes and cowards, of reputations earned and squandered, all told against a backdrop of phenomenal geopolitical and scientific change.

With a novelist's talent for the details that keep readers reading late, Maor tells the stories of how Kepler's misguided theology led him to the laws of planetary motion; of obscure Jeremiah Horrocks, who predicted the 1639 transit only to die, at age 22, a day before he was to discuss the event with the only other human known to have seen it; of the unfortunate Le Gentil, whose decade of labor was rewarded with obscuring clouds, shipwreck, and the plundering of his estate by relatives who prematurely declared him dead; of David Rittenhouse, Father of American Astronomy, who was overcome by the 1769 transit's onset and failed to record its beginning; and of Maximilian Hell, whose good name long suffered from the perusal of his transit notes by a color-blind critic.

Moving beyond individual fates, Maor chronicles how governments' participation in the first international scientific effort--the observation of the 1761 transit from seventy stations, yielding a surprisingly accurate calculation of the astronomical unit using Edmund Halley's posthumous directions--intersected with the Seven Years' War, British South Seas expansion, and growing American scientific prominence. Throughout, Maor guides readers to the upcoming Venus transits in 2004 and 2012, opportunities to witness a phenomenon seen by no living person and not to be repeated until 2117

Customer Reviews:

Venus in Transit doesn't cast a long shadow.......2004-03-11

I read e: The Story of a Number and Trigonometric Delights from Eli Maor and found both to be well written and enjoyable. With the transit of Venus approaching, the previous experience with Eli Maor brought me to his latest book. The writing style is the same, clear, fluent, but Venus in Transit is at a different level, more superficial than any of the other two books. And a couple of statements make you wonder. On page 58 "...Venus reaches its ascending node around December 8, and its descending node around June 7, so a transit can happen only around these dates. But for a transit actually to occur, Earth, too, must cross the line of the nodes on these dates." There is an inversion here, for Earth reaches the line of nodes at the given dates, while Venus is usually elsewhere in its orbit at these dates as already pointed by another reviewer. And then on page 20 when describing Galileo's observations of the phases of Venus as the first solid proof for the heliocentric system, the author states: " Venus showed phases like the moon - a narrow crescent at the time, a gibbous shape at another, and occasionally a nearly full disk. Here was solid proof that Venus moved around the sun; for had it moved around d the earth instead, it would have shown a full disk at each opposition, when it was directly opposite to the sun [sic]." This is surprising. Venus is never at opposition with the Sun as the ancients new very well by observation. The epicycles and deferents in the geocentric system of Ptolemy had their sizes and speeds carefully adjusted to account for the maximum elongation of 47 degrees or so along the ecliptic between the Sun and Venus. And although the geocentric system could not account for a full disk because in that system Venus was always between the Earth and the Sun, the alternative system proposed by Tycho Brahe could. These two inconsistencies suggest that Eli Maor is not exactly at home when discussing planetary astronomy and perhaps this is the source of the different levels between this book and the other two dealing with mathematics.

Incomplete history, muddled science.......2001-06-22

I have read a few of Eli Maor's books. They are not great masterpieces, but they fill a niche, providing all the information I wanted and more. This one was less satisfying. This became clear on page 58, where he states that Venus crosses the ecliptic on December 8 and June 7, and transits can occur only when Earth reaches the same node at the same time. Perhaps he is using the Venusian calendar, but in our calendar Earth will be there in December and June while the location of Venus will vary.

I bought this book because the transit of Venus in 1874 was significant in the history of Campbell Island (French expedition)and Auckland Island (German expedition) in the sub-Antarctic region. There were also Americans on Kerguelen and French on St. Paul Island, and probably others. Maor mentions only the British and German expeditions to Kerguelen, where the Brits released rabbits that devastated the native vegetation. The scale of the effort is not apparent from his tale.

My second objective was to learn what other mmethods were used to measure the astronomical unit when the transit of Venus proved inadequate. Maor mentions only that a measurement of the parallaz of Mars was used, but gives no hint how. Apparently there were other methods before WWII, but they are not in this book. Too much space is devoted to failures and speculations, pleasant stories properly used as side dishes, too little to the main course.

Interesting, simple astronomy.......2001-06-17

This book traces the history of the Venus transit, which is when Venus transits between the sun and earth, thus casting the planet's shadow on the sun. Happening only every 121 years, Maor explores the lives of the many scientists that studied the Venus transit in order to come up with an estimation of the astral unit (the distance between the sun and earth...about 93 million miles), including Galileo, Hell, Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe, and more. The book is very good, and one is left marveling at astronomy and eager to the coming of the transit, but Maor is very extensive in his history at times.

A syzygy for everyone.......2000-12-26

A transit of Venus is a kind of solar eclipse in which the planet Venus, rather than our moon, crosses in front of the Sun. A century-long interval between transits makes the normal kind of solar eclipse seem like a frequent event. The transits occur in pairs separated by eight years, with over one hundred-year separations between the pairs. The last transit of Venus was in 1882. However, we can look forward to the transits of 2004 and 2012.

By traveling thousands of miles, I have been able to place myself in the path of the shadow for six total and two annular solar eclipses. With careful planning, and some last minute scurrying to avoid clouds, my success rate for viewing of the critical event is seven of eight. How ironic that today I was able to walk into my own back yard to view a partial solar eclipse under a clear cloudless sky.

By contrast with total solar eclipses, which may be viewed only within a narrow corridor, a transit of Venus may be viewed from any place on the Earth that faces the Sun during the event. Thus, simultaneous observations may be made from distant locations.

The author tells the story of the pursuit of transits of Venus by scientists whose aim was to establish a precision measurement of the distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is a great adventure story. There are the usual disasters: there are wars; ships are intercepted; natives run off with the instruments; and there are clouds. Finally, an unexpected optical effect, the "black drop", appears. In the end science triumphs, although not as expected.

We no longer need to measure the transits of Venus to establish the astronomical unit. However, our ability to calculate and predict precise locations and times for the occurrence of such events as eclipses and transits is a confirmation of the success of our formulation of mechanics and an affirmation of the scientific method.

This work is primarily a history with the basic information on the details of the transit of 2004 and very little on the transit of 2012. The reader will have to go to the web for more. However, the eastern Mediterranean looks promising for 2004, while the transit of 2012 should provide an excuse for a trip to Hawaii.

From Unobserved to Key Measurements to Celestial Joy.......2000-12-15

Whether you are interested in astronomy or not, you will find this book to be a rewarding expansion of your understanding of that important, awe-inspiring part of the scientific pantheon.

The phrase, transit of Venus, describes the process whereby Venus appears to cross the Sun during daylight hours from earth. For most of recorded history, few probably paid attention. And for good reason. You would have been blinded by looking directly into the sun except very near sunrise and sunset. And you had to know when and where to be looking because transits of Venus are rare. Besides, you could see Venus on most nights anyway.

In this delightful background preparation for the next transit of Venus on June 8, 2004, Professor Maor provides all the background you could hope for to help you understand how celestial events (especially this one) are forecast so accurately, their scientific implications, and how to enjoy them yourself.

Many famous astronomers were encouraged to enter the field by first observing an eclipse. The ability to accurately predict the timing and the nature of the event left them with awe. Perhaps this transit of Venus will be our most productive ever for generating scholars for the 21st century. Oh, by the way, if you miss this one, there's another one coming along 8 years later in 2012.

Although ostensibly focused on a type of celestial event, the book has a broader theme: How humankind can use reason to deduce new understanding of the physical world.

The book begins with the origins of modern astronomy, by describing the observations of Galileo, the conclusions about the solar system by Copernicus, careful measurements of Brahe, Kepler's deductions from those observations, and Newton's application of these lessons into his Principia. All of that work made it possible to predict transits of Venus.

Since we all can see Venus with the unaided eye (unless blind or very near-sighted), why did anyone care? The main reason was that astronomers wanted to establish the distance between the earth and the Sun. They obviously could not pace it off. How could Venus help? By measuring the duration of the transit from far apart locations of known distance, one could construct a triangle and use standard trigonometry to calculate the distance to the Sun. This point is clearly and simply described in the book. The illustrations are wonderfully done to help.

Then the author gets down to the reality of executing on that simple concept. Many problems occur. At first, not enough observers are involved. Bad weather at the time of the transit can always obscure observations. The combination of our atmosphere and that of Venus also combine to create a black dot effect that makes it uncertain when the transit begins and ends. Some observers are accused of making mistakes. Other observers notice things that are not planetary transits. Thus, the realities and challenges of experimental science are well documented.

Astronomers have better ways to measure the distance to the Sun now. As a result, the transit of Venus takes on for us a combined role of aesthetic experience and honoring of the astronomical history associated with it. Professor Maor makes a nice transition in making this point clear.

He provides many tips for watching, including where to go, and how to watch safely. He describes a potential viewing from Jerusalem. That could be combined with a very nice religious pilgrimage, if you are so inclined, for those who have not been to Jerusalem before.

I especially liked his commentaries about seeing Earth transits from Mars, and transits of the inner planets from the outer ones as our ability to pursue space travel improves.

I think the most important question that this book raises is who to have with you when you observe the transit. A young person somewhere between the ages of 6 and 16 would probably be ideal. You could probably change a life with the experience that this event provides. I suggest that you provide that young person with a copy of this book (if old enough to appreciate it on their own) or read it to them and explain its meaning (if they are not advanced enough to appreciate it unaided). Then make a date to see the following transit 8 years later with the same person.

Acquire inspiration from the heavens . . . and closeness with a young person you care about!

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Solid Workmanlike Effort

Simon Newcomb

Simon Newcomb: Astronomer Extraordinaire

Simon Newcomb: America's Unofficial Astronomer Royal
Bill Carter , and Merri Sue Carter
Manufacturer: Mantanzas Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began

ASIN: 1591138035

Book Description

Recounts Simon Newcomb's climb from a penniless immigrant to the most renowned American astronomer of the 19th century, with never before published details of his family and professional lives, including his friendship with Congressman, and later President, James A. Garfield.

Customer Reviews:

Solid Workmanlike Effort.......2006-12-30

This is a book almost without flaws, a solid workmanlike effort, but somehow I was slightly disappointed. I knew who Simon Newcomb was and was aware of his contributions to the development of timescales and positional astronomy.

I read the Carters' previous book, "Latitude" and was completely smitten. This book lacks the compelling narrative style of that volume. Maybe I had set my hopes too high.

The book is a biography, very much in the traditional sense. However, rather than a chronological catalog of events, the chapters are a series of articles about major milestones in the life of Simon Newcomb, arranged in chronological order. There is, of course, some overlap but I found this approach both clever and very satisfying.

The authors are manifestly technically literate but the technical content is very, very low. Tastes vary, but I personally would have liked more.

The bad bits:

I would have enjoyed the book infinitely (ok, a lot) more if there were illustrations and photographs! Not one. Not even a photograph of the subject. [...] Just a B&W reproduction of a death notice, listing Newcomb's honors and associations, hardly different than plain text.

The layout is unfortunate. In several places long citations are inserted, enclosed by only a single pair of quotation marks. At least begin each paragraph of a citation with quotes, ok? I would have preferred "blockquote" style so I could easily tell where a citation began and ended without hunting for a teeny pair of goose tracks.

The authors also indulge in the habit of attributing thoughts, motives and actions to people that they could not possibly have known. (E.g., how, on opening a letter from Chandler alone in his study, Newcomb shifted his weight in his seat to find a comfortable spot.) The "third person omniscient" style is probably ok in a book aimed at high school students, but not in a serious biography. Anyway, it put me off.

Bottom line: Good read, could have been a lot better. A longer book might have been better, it transcends concise and borders on laconic in places. I definitely will buy the Carters' next book. You "should buy" this one.

Simon Newcomb.......2006-11-19

Simon Newcomb, by Bill Carter and Merri Sue Carter is the biography of a scientist who was born in 1835 and died in 1909. Simon Newcomb is a man of historical significance and the subject of his life and his achievements is a story that needed to be told. The Carters do a masterful job in doing so. As distinguished members in the same core scientific community as Newcomb, they are able to measure Newcomb's scientific achievements, present it well and give credit where credit is due. In Newcomb's later years, he spent "much time and energy writing popularized scientific articles, explaining complex concepts and results in terms that the public could understand and appreciate". Close to a century after his passing, the Carters give him their time and energy in honoring his life and scientific contributions.

"America's Unofficial Astronomer Royal", from the title page we see this statement and it is something worthy of exploration. I believe that in Newcomb's mind he was and through his actions you can see that it was something that he dearly wanted. Although openly taking on "the mantel of `Unofficial Astronomer Royal'", there was one thing that eluded him -the fact that he was never able to hold the title "Superintendent, U.S. Naval Observatory". The Carters depict his character so vividly that you can imagine his extreme angst never having captured this title, especially, since the opportunity was almost his for the taking until the assassination of his good friend, President Garfield.

In attempting to know why Newcomb behaved the way he did and accomplished the things that he accomplished, it is important to know the intricate details of his life. The Carters give us ample insight as to how and why he achieved so much. His youth, his father, and his relationships with men of science were constant catalysts for his desire to do more. In regards to his father, we see that he was a man that was immensely jealous of his son and belittled much of his activities and works. For Simon, he responded to this by encapsulating himself in work. Which is not too unusual, since the arguably, second most important American astronomer of this time, Seth Carlo Chandler, was incited by an intellectual rebellion against his father's wishes as well. What also fueled Newcomb to become "America's Unofficial Astronomer Royal" must have been his relationship with Airy. In this book, Airy is described as an unapproachable and uncompromising man. I believe that Newcomb was in some way in awe of Airy. The fact that he was not shunned away from Airy like others, leads me to believe that Newcomb was not openly critical of Airy and was most likely intimidated by the "Official Astronomer Royal".

What I think is most powerful in this book is its ability to show how Simon Newcomb came to be. All things considered, I believe he was a man with a strong vision. As "America's Unofficial Astronomer", he was able to execute this role to perfection. He was fully aware of what his science needed and he knew the best route to get there. A shinning example of this was his goal in measuring the distance of the earth to the sun. In doing so, he believed that a massive employment of American observers and instruments to view the transit of Venus would not be advisable for the determination of the astronomical unit. Instead he championed the idea that improving the estimate of the velocity of light would lead them to the best measure. So, learning that Albert Michelson was involved in improving upon this measure with his velocity of light experiments, Newcomb offered his assistance and I infer, his federal monetary allotment as well. As a result of their work, they were able to determine the distance from the earth to the sun about "100 times more accurately than the value obtained from the transit of Venus observations".

This book tells the story of Simon Newcomb, describes the scientific principles and techniques that were introduced, gives a distinct look at the relationships between the top scientists of the day, and manages to intertwine a political history in the process. Simon Newcomb was a person that was able to assess any given situation and make improvements to many different types of science - a bonafide polymath. He even went so far as to apply his scientific knowledge to flight, and in doing so may have come up with the idea of the blimp or "Zeppelins" as they were called at that time. I believe that Newcomb thought that there was truly nothing beyond his grasp and that his imagination and skill served science well. Although I believe that his contributions to science are vast and great, I also see him as a larger than life dynamo of his day, which is something that may be only realized by reading Simon Newcomb, by Bill Carter and Merri Sue Carter. I recommend this book to all readers.

Simon Newcomb: Astronomer Extraordinaire.......2006-02-06

Simon Newcomb is not well known to the general population but he should be. He was one of the most influential astronomers of the Nineteenth Century both in the US and Europe. This absorbing account of his life takes us from his early youth under an ineffective father through an indentured medical apprenticeship to his emergence as a world famous scientist. The authors, Bill and Merri Sue Carter, cover both his triumphs and his travails, and show the whole man, as Ben Franklin might have said, "warts and all."
In his youth Simon excelled in mathematics but was largely self-taught until he escaped his servitude in Canada and immigrated to the US, where he graduated from Harvard summa cum laude in two years, even while working at the Nautical Almanac Office. While still a resident graduate student at Harvard, Simon traveled to the wilds of Manitoba west of Lake Winnipeg to observe a total solar eclipse. In the decades that followed, he made many fundamental contributions to astronomy, including overseeing the construction of the workd's largest refractor telescope, which was used by a colleague at the U.S. Naval Observatory to discover the moons of Mars. He measured the speed of light wih Michelson, and used the result to determine the astronomical unit far more accurately than those values derived from the observations of the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882. Later he refined the orbital elements of our Moon, and made his mark on the international scene at the Paris Conference in May 1896 where his set of solar system constants was accepted by the participants (Germany, France, England and the United states). Newcomb had a long, and sometimes antagonistic relationship with Seth Carlo Chandler, Jr., who was credited with discovering the true complexity of the variation of latitude (see "Latitude, How American Astronomers Solved the Mystery of Variaton," by the same authors). It was Newcomb who reconciled the apparent conflict between the theory and the observed variation of latitude.
Newcomb's interests stretched beyond astronomy. When his friend President James Garfield lay dying in the heat of a Washington summer, he not only devised a method to cool the room even while the doors and windows remained open, but also arranged for Alexander Graham Bell to use his induction balance to remotely probe the location of the assassin's bullet lodged in the President's body.
A short review such as this cannot do justice to the richness of this biography. It is a facinating story, and must be read by the general public as well as by scientists the world over.
John R. Herman, retired geophysicist, author of "The Metamorphosis of a Geophysicist".

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The Life and Times of a Genius
Lost in Civl War of England, but Rediscovered.
A Forgotten Astronomer, Worth Remembering

Transit of Venus
Peter Aughton
Manufacturer: Orion Publishing Group, Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0753818752

Book Description

There is a missing chapter in the history of astronomy—between the work of Galileo and Newton—and it is a chapter that belongs to England. In the period before the English Civil War, Horrocks was the greatest astronomer in the kingdom. He knew the positions and motions of the planets more accurately than any person of his time, and was the first to appreciate the true scale of the solar system and formulate a valid theory for the wanderings of the moon. Yet he was not an elderly grey-bearded sage, but a young man living in provincial obscurity, who on his death had barely come of age but who left a great scientific legacy.

Customer Reviews:

The Life and Times of a Genius.......2006-05-21

The accomplishments of Jeremiah Horrocks, as depicted in this book, are truly astounding. The author carefully reconstructs Horrocks' genealogy, his brief life and his ground-breaking work in astronomy, amidst the backdrop of seventeenth century England. The book is well-written, clear and engaging. Less appealing to me was that the book contains many passages reproduced in the original old English. This slowed me down a bit since I found them cumbersome due to the different spelling and sentence structure characteristic of the period. On the other hand, this may be inevitable, at least to some degree, because of the book's subject matter. Overall, this is an interesting read that would likely be particularly appealing to astronomers at all levels.

Lost in Civl War of England, but Rediscovered........2005-04-22

Since the dawn of history, every civilization has seen men who studied the skies. In Europe and Asia, astronomers existed in Babylon, Egypt, India and China. In America, the Incas and Aztecs built pyramids and temples which showed knowledge and fascination with the sun, moon, and stars in the night sky. England had Stonehenge.

There's not much factual knowledge about Jeremiah Horrocks short
life; there has been only one other biography to surface, published in 1859 by A. B. Whatton. Photographs show the area and places he lived as he moved about. Born in May, 1618, he was only fourteen years old when he entered Cambridge on July 5, 1632. Just seven years later (1639), he was knowledgeable about the solar system and his observation of the primitive set-up he used in Carr House to view a rare celestial event, the "transit of Venus" was documented. It is similar to the way we are encouraged to watch the eclipse of the sun so as not to be blinded by the strong rays. He died in 1641.

The Royal Greenwith Observatory was founded in 1675; John Flamsteed was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal. However, Jeremiah Horrock is known as the "Father of British Astronomy. This book was released to coincide with the June, 2004, viewing of Venus moving across the face of the sun (for only the fifth time since the 1639 occurrence: about every 73 years or so).

My son Geoffrey earned his PhD in Astronomy at the University of Chicago and learned how to handle the monster telescopes at Kitt Peak as a grad student way out there in Arizona.

Peter Aughton has written ENDEAVOR, RESOLUTION, and NEWTON'S APPLE. He teaches at the University of the West of England and a Fellow of the Institute for Math. In 1970s he was involved with the Concorde supersonic airliner. He certainly knows his astronomy from primitive times.

A Forgotten Astronomer, Worth Remembering.......2004-08-31

Isaac Newton famously said, "If I have seen further than others before me, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Newton was not always so quick to acknowledge his debt to his fellow scientists, but everyone knows the remark could apply to indisputable giants like Galileo and Kepler. However, he also would have meant a giant who has, almost three centuries later, become almost an unknown within the history of astronomy. In _The Transit of Venus: The Brief, Brilliant Life of Jeremiah Horrocks, Father of British Astronomy_ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), Peter Aughton, who has written before on the voyages of Captain Cook and on Newton, puts Horrocks into his rightful place. It would be too much to say that he gives us a full picture of Horrocks and his work, for the mass of materials about the astronomer is just too meager. However, Horrocks was a brilliant astronomical observer and theoretician, and Newton knew it then as we should now.

There was in June 2004 a transit of Venus, only the fifth since Horrocks watched his in 1639. A transit occurs when Venus seems to cross the face of the Sun, and was important in those days because it could be used to calculate how far the Sun was from the Earth. He studied Kepler's work at college in Cambridge, and trusted Kepler, but not blindly; he discovered that Kepler, who had correctly predicted a 1631 transit of Venus, had mistakenly missed a transit that was coming in 1639. Horrocks only realized this with a month to spare, but he was ready to trace the planet crossing the Sun; he did so by training his telescope on the Sun and projecting the picture upon a screen within a darkened room. It was his mathematical analysis of the movements and timing of what he had seen that enabled him to confirm that Venus was moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, just as Kepler's laws had implied. However, a clear view of the planet crossing the solar disk showed it to be much smaller than Kepler had thought, and the calculated distance between the Earth and the Sun was far larger than any previous astronomer had come close to considering. Copernicus had estimated the distance to be 7.5 million kilometers, Kepler 22.1, and Horrocks weighed in with 95.4. Even then, he was well below the real figure of 149, but it can be said without exaggeration that he was the first man who had an inkling of how big the solar system really was.

Horrocks wrote up his account of the transit, and also went on to show that the Moon tracked an elliptical, not circular, path around the Earth, although the path of the Moon wobbled irregularly due to the gravity of the Sun. He also showed that Saturn and Jupiter were vastly larger than the Earth. Astonishingly, he made these discoveries when he was only twenty-two; only a year later in 1641 he was dead. There is no evidence about the cause of his death. His account of his researches was not published until 1662, and he was belatedly recognized as a genius by the new Royal Society. His work was revolutionary at the time he did it, but was not as influential as it could have been, if he had been within the mainstream of British science rather than observing and theorizing near Liverpool, if he had lived longer, and if Britain were not torn by its Civil War. Newton, in his monumental _Principia_, gave special credit to Horrocks for divining the elliptical orbit of the Moon. His influence might be small, but his importance as an observer and as a theoretician (those qualities are not often so well combined in one person) is clear. As much as can be known about him is in Aughton's necessarily brief but admiring review, from which readers will get a good idea of how astronomy was done at the time, and a welcome introduction to an original thinker.

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The Transits of Venus
If You're Interested, Don't Miss It
Such an exquisitely rare event... such a great book

The Transits of Venus
William Sheehan , and John Westfall
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
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Venus in Transit

ASIN: 1591021758

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The Transits of Venus.......2006-08-08

William Sheehan & John Westfall
The Transits of Venus
(Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY) 2004
407 pages
ISBN 1-59102-175-8

Reviewed by Frederic Jueneman

It may be much too late for readers of this review to observe the rare transit of Venus across the disk of the Sun, which took place on June 8, 2004, unless they already had been aware of the phenomenon and made prior arrangements to view the spectacle. As it so happens, the entire transit would only be visible in much of Europe and Asia, with some of the best viewing being in--of all places--Iraq. The eastern seaboards of Asia and Australia would only see the ingress of the transit, while eastern North and South America would only see the egress. The last time this transit occurred was December 6, 1882.
But, fret not my friends, for this rare celestial alignment will occur one more time in this century on June 5-6, 2012, as the entire transit passes across the International Dateline in the mid-Pacific. It's next two appearances then won't be until December 11, 2117 and December 8, 2125.
Curiously, these transits of Venus come in doublets spaced eight years apart minus some two days (or approx. 2920 days, with the appropriate allowance for leap years). However, the long intervals in between each pair of transits alternate between 105 and 122 years. Moreover, astronomers have grouped these transits into series, and which themselves recur every 243 years. (The number `243' is interesting as it coincidentally is the retrograde rotation of Venus in days.)
But, I digress.
The story itself begins with the dilemma of parallax, an age-old problem of viewing a body from two or more positions and estimating its size and distance. The Moon was such an object that had puzzled astronomers for millennia, although in the third century BCE Aristarchus of Samos had closely estimated the Moon's size and distance based on Earth's shadow during lunar eclipses. This problem is compounded by an apparent parallax-shift of some 2° when viewed from widely separated positions on the Earth. However, it becomes even more critical when extremely small angular displacements are encountered while estimating the size and distance of other objects such as the planets and Sun, not to mention distant stars.
Kepler's Third Law states that the cube of a planet's distance from the Sun is proportional to the square of its period of revolution about the Sun. Thus, it was thought that knowing the period of revolution of Venus, an estimate of its size and distance during a transit would give an indication of our own distance from the Sun. Such Cytherean transits across the Sun can take anywhere from three to six hours, depending on the specific planetary alignments and to a great extent the geographical positions of the observers, whereas a precise timing of the crossing is critical to each observer at a given latitude and longi¬tude. Such observations would be a triumph of science over the 45 known transits of Venus over recorded history since the days of Ammisaduqua,, the penultimate king of the First Dynasty of Babylon.
In the fourth century BCE, Heraclides of Pontus, a pupil of Plato, suggested that a lot of problems would be resolved if planets as Mercury and Venus were thought as orbiting the Sun and that the earth itself rotated on its own axis, but this was swept aside as more important concerns took precedence. This idea was later taken up by Aristarchus, but rejected on religious grounds that epistemologically declared that the Earth is the center of the universe and that the planets orbit it in perfect circles. The Alexandrian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in the second century CE carried this to a fine art. Indeed, for the sake of convenience, today's astronomers often refer to a body's deferent--average orbital figure--as circular, and we ourselves speak of the Sun's literally rising and setting, although it does no such thing.
However, by the time of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, it was clearly apparent to the intelligentsia that "saving the phenomena" wasn't cutting the mustard, as traditional views and pontifical hand-waving couldn't substitute for direct observation. In 1631 French astronomer Pierre Gassendi observed the transit of Mercury and hoped to see Kepler's prediction of that of Venus later the same year, except that it was over before sunrise in Paris. The first recorded observation of a partial Venus transit was carefully but hurriedly made eight years later by the 20-year-old English as¬tronomer Jeremiah Horrocks in 1639, as the next one was not due until 1761, and in so doing was able to correct the ratio between Venus' and Earth's orbits to a value still used today, The illustrious Gassendi could also have seen it from Paris, but he was otherwise occupied and had apparently lost interest.
An alternative solution to the solar parallax problem was taken up by Giovanni Cassini and the Dane Ole Rømer at the Paris observatory by way of Mars close approach to Earth in September 1672, with a second observation post manned by the Jesuit astronomer Jean Richer in Cayenne, French Guiana, on the South American coast, finding a value of some 25 arc-seconds of displacement of the planet's image against the background of stars. From this measurement the solar parallax implied a distance from the Earth to the Sun within about eight percent of to¬day's figure.
This all occurred during a period of almost global scientific revolution in the late 17th century, when it was thought that measurements of Venus transits would underscore Isaac Newton's clockwork universe and define the absolute values of the scale of our solar system--the solar parallax itself. Edmund Halley proposed that widely separated observers time the interval between transits from ingress to egress, so that the angles of observation could more accurately define the parallax. It was a suggestion that he himself would not see in his lifetime, nor that of his prediction of the comet of 1682 now bearing his name returning in 1758.
The French astronomer Joseph-Nicholas Delisle proposed an alternative method of observing the transit of 1761 over four essential moments, by noting first contact of Venus with the Sun's limb, then when it was just within the solar disk, when it was about to leave the disk again, and when it finally separated from the Sun proper. The main difficulty with this procedure was knowing one's precise longitude, a problem alleviated by the invention of the marine chronometer by John Harrison and independently by the lesser known Pierre Le Roy and Ferdinand Berthoud.
With Europe finally settling down after a series of conflicts and other political upheavals, dozens of astronomers and their retinues scattered across the globe to witness the event, most using Delisle's methodology. However, bad weather conditions, accidents, and of course politics--the Seven Years War just broke out--daunted many observers, but there were a few preciously good sightings that made the effort seem worthwhile. Moreover, the Russian astronomer Mikhail Lomonosov was the first to discover and recognize that the haze appearing around Venus as it crossed the Sun's limb was its atmospheric envelope.
It was this selfsame haziness that hampered the accurate observations of the transit, making the exact moment of crossing indistinct and error-prone, a phenomenon which cast serious doubt on the precision of parallax determination, and by inference the uncertain masses of the other planets. Further, a dark blob appeared to attach itself to the Sun's edge as the image of Venus dissociated itself during ingress and again when leaving during egress, exacerbating the difficulty of timing the transit. Ah well, there would be the upcoming transit of 1769 when they would be better prepared to adapt and mitigate such problems with improved techniques.
It didn't happen.
Preparations for the 1874 crossing by interested countries were lackadaisical in coming, despite otherwise serious planning by the astronomers, most only a few years before the event. However, new instru¬ments and techniques were involved in the mix, such as the heliometer, spectroscope, improved chronometers, telegraphy, and the advent of photography, notably collodion film and daguerreotype. And yet, with all the technological advances, the selfsame problems of clarity and sharpness remained. The photographs upon enlargement were even fuzzier than before. The uncertainties, if anything, were compounded by the advances.
According to authors, Sheehan and Westfall, the December 1882 was "the last hurrah" for the Halley and Delisle methods. Nevertheless, it was the first time that the Americas were in the spotlight since 1639, when Harvard was merely a fledgling university, having been founded just three years prior. The disappointments of 1874 left most previous contributors to the safari-like excursions less than enthusiastic, But then again, the next transit would skip the 20th century entirely, so some forty-odd voyages were dispatched to the western hemisphere for that last hurrah.
As is normally the case, newer and more revolutionary techniques were even then being forwarded that didn't rely on transit observations to ascertain solar parallax, and hence distances to the various planetary bodies, and subsequent determination of planetary masses, including that of Earth. Celestial mechanics was in its infancy, but was making such rapid inroads in these determinations to the point where transit observations would no longer be necessary or even desirable, except perhaps as recreational exercises.
One touching story from out of the 1882 event involved David Peck Todd, his wife Mabel, and Austin Dickinson, a town administrator of Amherst, Mass. It concerned an interesting ménage à trois in a so-called May-December romance between Mabel and Austin (the brother of poet Emily Dickinson). David Todd was the first to identify Phobos, the inner satellite of Mars during its opposition in 1877 (Asaph Hall is otherwise credited with the discovery of the outer moon Deimos), but Todd was actually more interested in studying Jupiter. However, he accepted the invitation to use the James Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton in California when the American doyen Simon Newcomb declined.
This site, just over the line in the transit egress zone, wasn't considered by the Washington, DC, Transit Committee because of generally poor winter weather conditions, besides it wasn't on their list for funding anyway. So, private subsidy, at least in this case, succeeded where public funding came up deficient. The facility had procured the latest photoheliostat, and Todd managed to get 125 photos good enough for micrometric analysis out of 147 plates. They were discovered in Lick's vault just a couple of years ago still "in mint condition," and enough to make a short motion picture of the series accompanied by John Philip Sousa's Transit of Venus March.
Mabel Todd herself single-handedly collected and collated the poems and letters of Emily Dickinson, rescuing them from oblivion, who in turn wrote:
"What are stars but Asterisks.
To point a human life!"
The transits of Venus in 2004 and 2012 will no doubt be irregular but enticing prey for the computer and camera-toting eclipse hunters, who will themselves be joined by tens of millions of onlookers from all walks of life. The problems of parallax won't perturb the scientific community as once they did, and so these events will now bring to a close another interesting chapter in the history of astronomy.
It's been fun.

If You're Interested, Don't Miss It.......2004-10-11

On June 8, 2004, I got up well before dawn and made my way to the school where I teach in Westchester County, New York. I met the astronomy teacher there--I teach physics and math-- and we proceeded to watch what we could of the transit of Venus, the passage of the planet Venus across the face of the sun. It dawned cloudy but we did manage to see the last half-hour or so and we got a number of excellent photographs of the event. It was a great morning--a chance to see a very rare astronomical event. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

Because of my experience, when I saw this book I couldn't resist taking a look. Sheehan & Westfall do a very good job at explaining the science of the transit, detailing views of the transit in maps & photographs, and in going through the history of the attempts at viewing and measuring the transit. Particularly interesting is their discussions of using the transit to measure the earth-sun distance and the number of voyages of exploration undertaken (including Captain Cook's) whose primary purpose was to find a good vantage from which to observe the transit.

Transits of Venus come in pairs separated by approximately 8 years. These pairs are then separated from each other by better than 100 years. Before 2004, the last transit was in 1882. After the transit of 2012, the next won't occur until 2117. Granted, this book is not going to hold any interest to anyone who is not interested in astronomy. But if observing the skies is something that fascinates you as it does me, read this book. Then put it on a shelf and pull it out again in 2012. Prepare yourself for the next transit because if you miss it next time, you won't get another chance. You'll have to leave the book for your grandchildren.

Such an exquisitely rare event... such a great book.......2004-04-26

William Sheehan is one of very few authors whose books I purchase as soon as they're published. Though not an historian of astronomy by profession, he is among the elite few who have contributed significantly to popular writings in that genre in the last 15 years or so. In taking on the topic of the transits of Venus, Sheehan, joined in this endeavor by John Westfall, has produced a magnificent volume that any amateur historian of astronomy will surely want to read.

As with all Sheehan efforts, Transits is meticulously researched and detailed, yet written in a lively and conversational tone that is a pleasure to read. Here will be found excellent scientific background: the nature of transits, the importance of transit observations in unlocking the value of the astronomical unit, etc. More importantly, to me, is the rich treatment of the history of transit observations. From Kepler's Rudolphine tables, where the first transits of Venus were accurately predicted, to the life and times of Jeremiah Horrocks, the short-lived English astronomer who first successfully observed one in 1639, to the massive international efforts of the 18th and 19th centuries, this work is filled with detail, photos, diagrams, and immensely satisfying story-telling. Here's an example of the detail and rich prose:

"The long wait for a transit of Venus finally ended at 3:06:22.3 PM Honolulu mean time, December 8 1874, when George Tupman became the first person in 105 years to see a transit of Venus. He had two advantages that gave him a head start: the Hawaiian stations were the closest in the world to the Delislean point of earliest ingress: and he was observing with a spectroscope that allowed him to spot Venus against the sun's inner atmosphere, the chromosphere, a full 39 seconds before it touched the visible solar limb."

Sheehan and Westfall's orientation is so decidedly historical that they make a surprising omission: There is no discussion of the reason for the curious spacing of Venus transits: a pair 8 years apart, followed by a gap of either 105 or 122 years, and then another pair 8 years apart. Perhaps this discussion, about which I think many readers would be curious, was omitted because it can be somewhat technical. More likely, they simply had to make some decisions on what to include and not include based on their particular slant.

At any rate, such an omission is more than balanced by what Sheehan and Westfall do include. I was overjoyed to read such exquisite detail about the observational and photographic instruments used to observe and measure the transits of 1874 and 1882. As far as I know, Sheehan and Westfall are the first authors to offer such thorough coverage in a popular work. There are also many photographs and drawings reproduced from this pair of transits, many more than I have ever seen in print before.

Book Description

The three outstanding plays in this collection include Footprints on the Moon (finalist for the Governor General's Award and winner of the Labatt Award for Best Canadian Play) which tells the story of a woman's attempt to prevent her teenage daughter from leaving home and escalates into a struggle to understand the loves and losses that have shaped her life; Beautiful Lake Winnipeg, a riveting tongue–in–cheek tale about adults who play dangerous games as a young man accompanies his fiancée to her lakeside cabin only to find her ex–husband waiting for them; and lastly, Transit of Venus, which is set in France at a time when society was rapidly expanding its knowledge of the earth and the cosmos. This powerful drama about an ambitious astronomer and the women who love him examines the conflicting needs of men and women.

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Transits of Venus
Frances Sakoian
Manufacturer: CSA Printing and Bindery, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

1769 Transit of Venus: The Baja California Observations of Jean-Baptiste (Baja California Travels Series)

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A very special little gem

1769 Transit of Venus: The Baja California Observations of Jean-Baptiste (Baja California Travels Series)

Manufacturer: Dawsons Book Shop
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0938644181

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A very special little gem.......1999-12-22

This is a very special little gem of a book -- slim but glittering with strange stories. As a collector's item it's worth the money.

Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles,: And made easy to those who have not studied mathematics. To which are added, A plain method of ... observation of the transit of Venus in 1639

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Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles,: And made easy to those who have not studied mathematics. To which are added, A plain method of ... observation of the transit of Venus in 1639
James Ferguson
Manufacturer: Printed for J. Johnson [etc.]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B00087N03Y

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