Andrea Wulf. (2012). Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Andrea Wulf. 2012. Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens. Books on Tape.

Andrea Wulf, Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens. Books on Tape, 2012.

Andrea Wulf. Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2012.

OverDrive Product Record

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   • bioText: ANDREA WULF was born in India and moved to Germany as a child. She is the author of Founding Gardeners and The Brother Gardeners, as well as the coauthor (with Emma Gieben-Gamal) of This Other Eden: Seven Great Gardens and 300 Years of English History. She has written for The Sunday Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, and she regularly reviews for several newspapers, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Times Literary Supplement.
   • name: Andrea Wulf
2. • role: Narrator
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2012-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

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title

Chasing Venus

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The author of the highly acclaimed Founding Gardeners now gives us an enlightening chronicle of the first truly international scientific endeavor—the eighteenth-century quest to observe the transit of Venus and measure the solar system.
   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 remote corners of the world, only to have their efforts thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs: eight years later, the scientists would have another opportunity to succeed.
   Chasing Venus brings to life the personalities of the eighteenth-century astronomers who embarked upon this complex and essential scientific venture, painting a vivid portrait of the collaborations, the rivalries, and the volatile international politics that hindered them at every turn. In the end, what they accomplished would change our conception of the universe and would forever alter the nature of scientific research.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Owen Gingerich, Nature
   • content: "Excellent. . . . Chasing Venus is beautifully paced, alternating between expeditions, with lush descriptions of the often arduous journeys involved."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Ian Welland, Astronomy Now
   • content: "Outstanding. . . . It's the book of the year so far--do not miss it!"
3. • premium: False
   • source: Alexandra Witze, Dallas Morning News
   • content: "Andrea Wulf has now chronicled the 18th-century transit expeditions in a narrative light on astronomical detail but rich in personalities and adventures. The race was the 1760s version of reality TV -- a cross between Amazing Race and Survivor. People waited to see which astronomers would make it and which wouldn't, and to learn whether all the time and money was worth it. Wulf doesn't entirely resolve that question, but she does wonderfully sketch the race for scientific, and patriotic, glory."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Iain Finlayson, The Times (London)
   • content: "Another fine example of such scientific storytelling. . . . Narrated with elegant expertise."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Matthew Price, The Boston Globe
   • content: "The 18th century stargazers whom Andrea Wulf describes . . . would put Indiana Jones to shame. . . . Here is a book both astrophysicists and poets can enjoy."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Ann Levin, The Denver Post
   • content: "Chasing Venus is [a] thrilling adventure story. . . . Wulf's marvelous eye for detail and talent for simplifying complex science make the book, timed for release a month before the last transit of this century, well worth reading before June."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Booklist
   • content: "[An] enthusiastic account. . . . With the next transit predicted for June 6, 2012, Wulf's well-handled history arrives in a timely manner."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus, starred review
   • content: "[Wulf] clearly explains how Venus' transit across the sun, which occurs every 105 years (and each time does so twice, at eight-year intervals--one will occur in June 2012), gave Enlightenment astronomers a chance to figure out such things as the distance between the earth and the sun. . . . Enlightening Enlightenment fare."
9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: Who'd have thought astronomy could be so adventurous? When an international consortium of astronomers sets out in 1761 to points across the globe to measure the movement of Venus across the face of the sun, its members find themselves in the middle of a naval war between France and Britain, crossing frozen lakes and rivers in Finland and Siberia, and navigating fickle tropical winds in the Indian Ocean, all in an attempt to calculate the size of the solar system. This is the stuff of Indiana Jones, not Edmond Halley, who came up with the idea. So it is disappointing that the narration of this book should be so matter-of-fact. Robin Sachs is solid and easy to listen to. His pronunciation of foreign words and cities is spot-on. But he lacks the enthusiasm the author has for his subject. Sachs reads the material well but makes this a book on science, not the adventure yarn it really is. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

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The author of the highly acclaimed Founding Gardeners now gives us an enlightening chronicle of the first truly international scientific endeavor—the eighteenth-century quest to observe the transit of Venus and measure the solar system.
   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 remote corners of the world, only to have their efforts thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs: eight years later, the scientists would...

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