ISBN-13: 9783639035865 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 144 str.
One of the key moments of the Scientific Revolution§was the §transformation in the understanding of the earth s§form. The §world as we now understand it spherical and mostly§rock with§shallow oceans was novel and controversial. Most§scholars around§1500 believed the world was mostly ocean with a small§sphere of land §floating in it like a bobbing apple. Crucial to the§work of key thinkers §such as Copernicus, Galileo and Descartes, the new§theory of the earth §had important implications for astronomy and the§universe as a whole. §Remarkably, the importance of this dramatic change in§concepts of the §earth has been overlooked by historians, as has the§vibrant scientific §field in which the developments both of geography and§astronomy took §place: cosmography. This book restores the period s§changing ideas §about the earth and its continents, and still more§importantly §cosmography, into the centre of the Scientific§Revolution.