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Galileo
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
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Publisher's summary
In 1610, Galileo published the Siderius nuncius, or Starry Messenger, a "hurried little masterpiece" in John Heilbron's words. Presenting to the world his remarkable observations using the recently invented telescope - the craters of the moon, the satellites of Jupiter - Galileo dramatically challenged our idea of the perfection of the heavens and the centrality of the Earth in the universe. Indeed, the appearance of the little book is regarded as one of the great moments in the history of science.
Planned to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Starry Messenger, this is a major new biography of Galileo, a fresh and much more rounded view of the great scientist than found in earlier works. Unlike previous biographers, Heilbron shows us that Galileo was far more than a mathematician: he was deeply knowledgeable in the arts, an expert on the epic poet Ariosto, and a fine lutenist.
More important, Heilbron notes that years of reading the poets and experimenting with literary forms were not mere sidebars - they enabled Galileo to write clearly and plausibly about the most implausible things. Indeed, Galileo changed the world not simply because he revolutionized astronomy, but because he conveyed his discoveries so clearly and crisply that they could not be avoided or denied. If ever a discoverer was perfectly prepared to make and exploit his discovery, it was the dexterous humanist Galileo aiming his first telescope at the sky.
In Galileo, John Heilbron captures not only the great scientist, but also the creative, artistic younger man who would ultimately become the champion of Copernicus, the bête noire of the Jesuits, and the best-known of all martyrs to academic freedom.
The title music in this audiobook is Ave Maris Stella by Claudio Monteverdi, which was published in the same year Galileo published Sidereus Nuncius (i.e. The Starry Messenger). Ave Maris Stella was performed using period instruments by the Green Mountain Project. We’re especially proud to note that a member of the Green Mountain Project, Hank Heijink, also works at Audible!
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In Significant Figures, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart introduces the visionaries of mathematics throughout history. Delving into the lives of twenty-five great mathematicians, Stewart examines the roles they played in creating, inventing, and discovering the mathematics we use today. Through these short biographies, we get acquainted with the history of mathematics.
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Beware
- By Anton Kurtz on 12-08-18
By: Ian Stewart
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Stealing God's Thunder
- Benjamin Franklin's Lightning Rod and the Invention of America
- By: Philip Dray
- Narrated by: David Chandler
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning author Philip Dray delves into the lesser-known side of an American icon in Stealing God's Thunder. Benjamin Franklin, more often viewed as a statesman and founding father than as a man of science, challenged religion, science, and reason with his inventions. But in a time when everything was blamed on sin, it was the lightning rod, Franklin's attempt to control the heavens, that caused the greatest controversy.
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Fascinating
- By Abigail on 05-26-11
By: Philip Dray
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The Dream of Reason, New Edition
- A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
- By: Anthony Gottlieb
- Narrated by: Anthony Gottlieb
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Already a classic, this landmark study of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. Author Anthony Gottlieb looks afresh at the writings of the great thinkers, questions much of conventional wisdom, and explains his findings with unbridled brilliance and clarity. From the pre-Socratic philosophers through the celebrated days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, up to Renaissance visionaries like Erasmus and Bacon, philosophy emerges here as a phenomenon unconfined by any one discipline.
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Bias spoils the work.
- By MC on 08-21-20
By: Anthony Gottlieb
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The Dream of Enlightenment
- The Rise of Modern Philosophy
- By: Anthony Gottlieb
- Narrated by: Anthony Gottlieb
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Dream of Enlightenment, Anthony Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period - from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution - Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy.
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Enlightenment meets Neuroscience
- By Rodger on 12-05-19
By: Anthony Gottlieb
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The Discoverers
- A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself
- By: Daniel J. Boorstin
- Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
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Why didn't the Chinese discover America? Why were people so slow to learn the earth goes around the sun? How and why did we begin to think of "species" of plants and animals? How, when, and why did people begin digging in the earth to learn about the past? How did the study of economics begin? These are but a few of the fascinating questions answered by Dr. Boorstin, Librarian of Congress Emeritus.
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One of my Top 10 Fav. Books!
- By shannonnn on 05-09-05
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A Wicked Company
- The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends.
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Excellent Book on Radical Enlightenment
- By EJJ on 02-15-15
By: Philipp Blom
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The Age of Wonder
- How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
- By: Richard Holmes
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution.
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Misleading title
- By Diane on 08-04-11
By: Richard Holmes
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The Clockwork Universe
- Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
- By: Edward Dolnick
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Calculus Ergo Modernity
- By Nelson Alexander on 07-09-11
By: Edward Dolnick
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Our Oriental Heritage
- The Story of Civilization, Volume 1
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
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Wonderful
- By Michael on 11-30-13
By: Will Durant
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The House of Wisdom
- How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization
- By: Jonathan Lyons
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling advances in science and philosophy, and of the itinerant Europeans who brought this knowledge back to the West. For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile, Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse.
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Missing history
- By Robert on 11-26-11
By: Jonathan Lyons
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Euclid's Window
- The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace
- By: Leonard Mlodinow
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Through Euclid's Window Leonard Mlodinow brilliantly and delightfully leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace. Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space -- in the living room or in some other galaxy -- have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology.
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Wow!
- By Eric on 08-13-10
By: Leonard Mlodinow
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How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
- By: Thomas E. Woods Jr.
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Western civilization has given us modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of law, a sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts we take for granted.
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Fascinating and informative
- By Michael Kellogg on 09-29-05
What listeners say about Galileo
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Adu
- 02-24-20
It's not exactly an audiobook...
because you'll need to spend plenty of time reading the download PDF. If you're not in a time and place where you can read the PDF, the audio will sometimes make no sense.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Curatina
- 07-28-11
A Difficult Book for Audible
First, the book has a great deal of detail and is extremely informative. That is the good part. The bad part, for me at least, is that the book contains many mathematical formulas and all of them are read out loud. I'm not saying I could understand them even if I looked at them, but listening to them is incomprehensible to me. Also the author refers to drawings and points on the drawings have letters, so there is a great deal of "the lever at point 'h' is swung to 'l' " etc. It makes no sense without seeing the drawing. Also if you get the book, you must be prepared for a great deal of discussion about physics and mathematics. It's really more scientific history than just a biography. It's well done, but perhaps not a good choice for an audible book.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Tp
- 06-28-11
Stick to the printed version
This particular work is not well suited for an audio book because of the extensive references to formulas and diagrams apparently in the hard copy version. The narrarator actually reads from geometric diagrams by line segment notations. It's appeal is further limited by recitation of extensive passages from Galileo's dialogues and letters. There are some interesting insights into Galileo's broader interests and accomplishments. Galileo fans should stick to the bound version of this one.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Luke Walton
- 01-10-17
Written By Copernicus?
An immensely bloated and boring book. The limited relevant information is merely peppered among superfluous mathematics poorly explained and not suited for an audiobook. The primary sources of Galileo (notably his dialogues) give a better representation of his personality than this dry audiobook. It reeks of Aristotelian scholasticism aka BOREDOM.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Richy
- 07-25-15
A + b = boring
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
I wanted to hear the history of Galileo not a bunch of equations read out like I was in a Victorian arithmetic class. This book is not suitable for audible
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Overall
- Norman G
- 05-09-11
I don't get it.
I read a lot of history and biography. I made it through the first hour before I gave up. It was like the reader dropped the pages on the street and didn't bother putting them back in order.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Chester Chellman
- 05-04-12
apologist
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
the book relies heavily in parts on the pdf with its diagrams, sketches etc- and I don't walk around listening to a book with a lot a paper to look at.
Any additional comments?
The author underplays the horror- and no other word properly conveys what the church did- of how Galileo was mistreated, lied to and denied medical treatment by the church.
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