San Antonio College Library

Biography of the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center.

Designed for middle and high school students, A to Z of Scientists in Space and Astronomy is an ideal reference to notable male and female scientists in the field of space and astronomy, from antiquity to the present. Containing more than 150 entries and approximately 50 black-and-white photographs, this exciting volume in the Notable Scientists series emphasizes these scientists' contributions to the field as well as their effects on those who have...

Because of Galileo's courageous campaign to change the methods of doing science, physicist Albert Einstein called him "the father of modern physics--indeed, of modern science altogether." A devout Catholic who wanted the church to maintain its authority and wisdom, Galileo worked tirelessly to persuade the church authorities to stop insisting that the sun revolved around a stationary earth, when there was evidence to prove otherwise. Galileo's persistence...

A biography of twentieth-century scientist Carl Sagan, discussing his lifelong obsession with interplanetary travel and life in outer space, and considering how that interest made him an icon of popular culture, but reflected badly on his professional standing.

"The precursor of the Age of Reason, perhaps the most dramatic figure in the history of science and foremost amongst its martyrs, Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa in 1564, of an impoverished aristocratic Florentine family. He was educated at the Jesuit monastery of Vallombrosa and at the university of Pisa. During his twenty-one years as Professor of Mathematics at Pisa and Padua, Galileo discovered the isochronism of the pendulum, disproved the accepted...

Born in 1889 and reared in the village of Marshfield, Missouri, Edwin Powell Hubble - star athlete, Rhodes Scholar, military officer, astronomer - became one of the towering figures in twentieth-century science. Hubble worked with the great 100-inch Hooker telescope at California's Mount Wilson Observatory, and made a series of discoveries that revolutionized humanity's vision of the cosmos. In 1923, he was able to confirm the existence of other nebulae,...

In 2013, the New York Times published an obituary for Yvonne Brill. It began: "She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children." It wasn't until the second paragraph that readers discovered why the Times had devoted several hundred words to her life: Brill was a brilliant rocket scientist who invented a propulsion system to keep communications satellites in orbit, and...

"Taking inspiration from Siv Cedering's poem in the form of a fictional letter from Caroline Herschel that refers to 'my long, lost sisters, forgotten in the books that record our science', this book tells the lives of twenty-five female scientists, with specific attention to astronomers and mathematicians. Each of the presented biographies is organized as a kind of 'personal file' which sets the biographee's life in its historical context, documents...

"The son of a musician, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) tried at first to enter a monastery before engaging the skills that made him the foremost scientist of his day. Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. Most sensationally, his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the astounding argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought...