Origin: U.S.A.
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Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens
Andrea Wulf
Synopsis "Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens"
A "thrilling adventure story" (San Francisco Chronicle) that brings to life the astronomers who in the 1700s embarked upon a quest to calculate the size of the solar system, and paints a vivid portrait of the collaborations, rivalries, and volatile international politics that hindered them at every turn. - From the author of Magnificent Rebels and New York Times bestseller The Invention of Nature.On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the Earth and the Sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system--but only if they could compile data from many different points of the globe, all recorded during the short period of the transit. Overcoming incredible odds and political strife, astronomers from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the American colonies set up observatories in the remotest corners of the world, only to be thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs; eight years later, they would have another opportunity to succeed. Thanks to these scientists, neither our conception of the universe nor the nature of scientific research would ever be the same.
Andrea Wulf nació en India, se mudó a Alemania de niña y hoy vive en Londres, donde da clases de Historia del Diseño en el Royal College of Art. Es autora de libros como The Brother Gardeners y Founding Gardeners. The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, aclamado por la crítica. Ha colaborado con medios como The New York Times, The LA Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times y The Guardian, entre otros medios. Ha dado conferencias en lugares como la Royal Geographical Society, la Royal Society de Londres, la American Philosophical Society de Philadelphia y la Biblioteca Pública de Nueva York. Es autora, entre otros libros, de la maravillosa biografía de Alexander Von Humboldt La invención de la naturaleza (Taurus, 2016), best seller internacional, con el que obtuvo más de quince premios internacionales (incluidos el Royal Society Science Book Award y el Costa Biography Award) y de la novela gráfica El increíble viaje de Alexander von Humboldt al corazón de la naturaleza (Random Comics, 2019).
