Publisher's Synopsis
Starting with first principles and familiar situations, this book on space looks at what we know and feel comfortable with before expanding to the further reaches of scientific enquiry. It describes how for thousands of years stargazers and astronomers have made maps and imagined models of the heavens. It was in the 16th and 17th centuries that people began to question the accepted ideas about the universe. The scientific laws that govern the movements of bodies in space have their origin in the work of Isaac Newton.;During the 18th and 19th centuries the major challenge to astronomers was to answer questions about the size of the universe and at last by the beginning of the 20th century, astronomers had a reliable way of measuring the vast stellar distances. As the search for the edge of the universe has continued, the book explians how many scientists have been speculating about the origins of the universe and its future. Finally the author describes theories about black holes and inflation.
