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Histoires extraordinaires et insolites d’astronomes
Jean-Pierre Luminet, Olivier Ikor

But scholars – oh, My Lordship – and astronomers in particular, never do anything like everyone else. That’s why the adventures they get into are not like those of ordinary people.

Scheherazade, on her 849th night with Sultan Shahryar.

With his in-depth knowledge of astrophysics and his novelist’s knack for writing, J.-P. Luminet illustrates that comment from Scheherazade by revealing nine little-known anecdotes about great and singular astronomers?: from Regiomontanus, famous for his measurements of cosmic dimensions, who was assassinated inside the Vatican for having made fun of one of his colleagues’ slapdash theories, to the court gown that the famous Halley gave to the wife of Hevelius to thank her for the nights they’d spent together on an observatory platform watching the stars’ orbs; from Maupertuis’s escapades with pretty Laplanders, when he was trying to find out if the earth was shaped like a mandarin or a lemon, to the beheading of Bailly, mayor of Paris during the French Revolution and an illustrious astronomer who scorned the calculations of mere mortals; from Victor Hugo, who, in his poem The Comet, from The Legend of the Ages, mangles the history of science to shape it to his own needs, to Camille Flammarion, whose library had manuals bound in human flesh… and other amazing adventures.

Nine little-known but fabulous stories about great astronomers who risked their lives, accumulated extraordinary discoveries and definitively transformed our view of the world and of the universe. By one of the greatest astrophysicists of our times, who has written a large body of fascinating work, ranging from novels to scientific volumes.

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  • Publication date : 03/03/2022
  • Size : 14 x 20,5 cm, 272 p., 20,50 EUR €
  • ISBN 978-2-283-03480-4
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Italy, Italian, La Lepre Edizioni

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