Seeing and Believing by Richard Panek, Fourth Estate, £6.99, ISBN
0140280618
THE TELESCOPE has done more than any other invention in the past several
centuries to change our perception of where we stand in the Universe.
Discuss.
Richard Panek’s compact and highly readable book, Seeing and
Believing, provides a thoroughly enjoyable opener to the debate. It is not
a complete history of the telescope, which would require a laundry list of
technological achievements. Rather, Panek provides snapshots of particular
people and events that led to radical philosophical changes in how the Earth’s
place in the cosmos was viewed.
Astronomy is,…
