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Book Number
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000310485
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ISBN
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 0691011508 (alk. paper)
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9780691011509 (alk. paper)
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0691009252
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9780691009254
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Main Entry
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Schechner, Sara,, 1957-
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Title
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Comets, popular culture, and the birth of modern cosmology / Sara Schechner Genuth.
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Imprint
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Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1997.
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Descr.
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xvi, 365 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
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Bibliogr.
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-351) and index.
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Contents
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Shared culture, separate spaces -- Ancient signs -- Monsters and the Messiah -- Divination -- Portents and politics -- From natural signs to proximate causes -- The decline of cometary divination -- Comets, transmutations, and world reform in Newton’s thought -- Halley’s comet theory, Noah’s flood, and the end of the world -- Refueling the sun and planets -- Revolution and evolution within the heavens -- Popular culture and elite science -- Recent resurgence of cometary catastrophism.
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Abstract
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In a lively investigation into the boundaries between popular culture and early-modern science, Sara Schechner Genuth presents a case study that challenges the view that rationalism was at odds with popular belief in the development of scientific theories. Schechner Genuth delineates the evolution of people’s understanding of comets, showing that until the seventeenth century, all members of society dreaded comets as heaven-sent portents of plague, flood, civil disorder, and other calamities. Although these beliefs became spurned as "vulgar superstitions" by the elite before the end of the century, she shows that they were nonetheless absorbed into the science of Newton and Halley, contributing to their theories in subtle yet profound ways.
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Subject - Lib.Cong.
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Comets.
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Cosmology.
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Religion and science.
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Superstition.
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Subject - MeSH
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Astronomy -- history.
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Electronic Location
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 Table of contents http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/prin031/96052186.html
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Publisher description http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/prin021/96052186.html
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Holdings
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All items
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holdings (2)
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Gennadius Library
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Holdings (5)
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Only filtered items
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