A More Perfect Heaven:
How Copernicus Revolutionized
the Cosmos
Dava Sobel
Daring to defy a centuries-old belief,
Polish cleric and astronomer Nicolaus
Copernicus spun the Earth on its axis
and cast it as just one of several planets
shuffling around the sun. Published in
1543, Copernicus’ tome On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres earned a
spot on the church’s list of prohibited
books in 1616, where it sat for more
than 200 years.
In her newest book, Sobel describes
the evolution of Copernicus’ heretical
celestial system, a model that sparked a
scientific revolution and challenged the
prevailing Ptolemaic alignment, which
pinned the Earth in place and set the
other spheres swirling around it. In her
typically elegant manner, Sobel introduces the reader to Copernicus — a
cleric and physician, the nephew of
a Catholic bishop, and a reclusive
astronomer who studied the heavens
in secret.
Sobel describes the events preceding
Empire of the Beetle: How Human
Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing
North America’s Great Forests
Andrew Nikiforuk
It’s amazing that a small sackful of bark
beetles, each no larger than a grain of
rice, can in a matter of days kill a tree
more than a century old. Yet maybe it’s
not surprising, considering that these
voracious pests descend upon forests in
swarms that can easily weigh more than
a pod of killer whales.
Nikiforuk, a
Canadian journalist,
chronicles the plague
of bark beetles that in
the last quarter-cen-
tury has killed more
than 30 billion pine
and spruce trees from
Alaska to New Mexico. No creatures
except humans, he says, can change a
landscape as dramatically and quickly.
the publication of Copernicus’ theory,
and along the way the reader meets
German mathematician Georg
Joachim Rheticus, a Lutheran. During
the turmoil of the Protestant Revolution, Rheticus appears on Copernicus’
doorstep, sticks around for two years
and ultimately convinces the aging
astronomer to publish his theory.
Sobel imagines and voices the pair’s
conversations in a
drama tucked into
the middle of the
otherwise histori-
cal narrative. That
drama, “And the Sun
Stood Still,” reads like
a mini-screenplay,
breathing life into
these two conflicted, obsessive and ulti-
mately revolutionary characters. Sobel
says she’s been wanting to dramatize the
meeting between Copernicus and “the
uninvited visitor who convinced him to
publish his crazy idea” since 1973 — the
500th anniversary of Copernicus’ birth.
— Nadia Drake
Walker & Company, 2011, 273 p., $25
the beetles free of their natural constraints. A century of fire suppression
has nearly tripled the proportion of
old trees, which don’t produce enough
resin to create a gooey protective barrier
against beetles. Climate change plays
a role, too: Trees stressed by heat and
drought can’t mount a strong defense
against a beetle blitz, and winters in
many infested regions are no longer cold
enough to kill the pests in large numbers.
Nikiforuk draws on interviews with
scientists, foresters and rural residents
to paint a nuanced picture of beetle outbreaks and their long-term implications.
By managing woodlands to maximize
timber, humans have taken patchy and
diverse forests and transformed them
into all-you-can-eat smorgasbords for
beetles. Although climate change has
rung the dinner bell for hungry beetles,
the author suggests, human arrogance
has surely set the table. — Sid Perkins
Cosmic Numbers
James D. Stein
The stories behind
numbers — their
discoveries and
relationships to one
another — come to life
in this tale of universal constants.
Basic Books, 2011, 228 p., $25.99
The Prince of
Evolution
Lee Alan Dugatkin
A biologist tells the tale
of Peter Kropotkin, a
Russian prince whose
adventures and stud-
ies of evolution and society made him
an international celebrity.
CreateSpace, 2011, 121 p., $12.99
The Dolphin in
the Mirror
Diana Reiss
A dolphin researcher
describes studies of
the animals’ intel-
ligence and makes a
case for their protection. Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 276 p., $27
Disease Maps
Tom Koch
This unconventional
history charts the rise
of epidemiology by
examining how maps
have been used to
follow the spread of disease. Univ.
of Chicago Press, 2011, 330 p., $45
Becoming Dr. Q
Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa with Mim
Eichler Rivas
An autobiography
charts one man’s
voyage from migrant
worker to brain surgeon. Univ. of
California Press, 2011, 317 p., $27.50
How to Order To order these books or others,
visit www.sciencenews.org/bookshelf. A click on
a book’s title will transfer you to Amazon.com.
