Preface

Introduction

PART ONE：THE HEROIC AGE

1 Dawn

2 The Harmony of the Spheres

3 The Earth Adrift

4 The Failure of Nerve

5 The Divorce from Reality

Chronological Table to Part One

PART TWO：DARK INTERLUDE

1 The Rectangular Universe

2 The Walled-in Universe

3 The Universe of the Schoolmen

Chronological Table to Part Two

PART THREE：THE TIMID CANON

1 The Life of Copernicus

2 The System of Copernicus

Chronological Table to Part Three

PART FOUR：THE WATERSHED

1 The Young Kepler

2 The ＇Cosmic Mystery＇

3 Growing Pains

4 Tycho de Brahe

5 Tycho and Kepler

6 The Giving of the Laws

7 Kepler Depressed

8 Kepler and Galileo

9 Chaos and Harmony

10 Computing a Bride

11 The Last Years

PART FIVE：THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

1 The Burden of Proof

2 The Trial of Galileo

3 The Newtonian Synthesis

Chronological Table to Parts Four and Five

EPILOGUE

Selected Bibliography

Notes

Index