Shifting the Earth (eBook)

ARTHUR MAZER, PhD, is Manager of Quantitative Analytics at Southern California Edison, where he oversees the risk assessment of the company's power and gas portfolio. Throughout his career, he has held various academic positions as well as analyst positions at Electrabel, Progress Energy, and Energy Power Marketing Corporation. Dr. Mazer is the author of Electric Power Planning for Regulated and Deregulated Markets and The Ellipse: A Historical and Mathematical Journey, both published by Wiley.

PREFACE ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv

1 PERFECTION 1

2 PERFECTIONISTS 5

A Tour of Athens / 5

Plato's Challenge / 8

Eudoxus' Universe / 10

The Math (a mathematical presentation requiring linear algebra)
/ 14

3 THE ICONOCLAST 24

Insanity / 24

A Disturbing Insight / 29

Aristarchus and On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and
Moon (a mathematical presentation requiring trigonometry)
/ 29

4 INSTIGATORS 38

A Heavy Hand / 38

Patriarchs / 41

The Irony / 43

Fun / 44

Apollonius' Osculating Circle and the Ellipse (a
mathematical presentation requiring calculus) / 46

Fun's Harvest / 62

5 RETROGRADE 63

The Imperial Theocracy / 63

Ptolemy's Universe / 67

Ptolemy and The Almagest (a mathematical presentation
requiring trigonometry) / 70

Inspiration / 91

6 REVOLUTIONARY 93

Possibilities / 93

Copernicus' On Revolutions, the Pursuit of Elegance
/ 103

The Model (a mathematical presentation requiring trigonometry)
/ 106

An Elegant Result / 116

7 RENEGADES 117

Countering the Reformation / 117

The Trio: Tycho, Kepler, and Rudolf / 119

Meanwhile in Italy / 131

New Astronomy, in Kepler's Own Likeness /
134

A Path Strewn with Casualties / 136

The Physicist's Law / 142

Tycho's Gift / 145

Mars' Bed / 147

Configuring the Ellipse: The Second Law (a mathematical
presentation requiring trigonometry) / 149

The Mentor / 167

8 THE AUTHORITY 168

Louis XIV, the Sun King / 168

Newton, the Math King / 172

The Influential Principia / 181

Without Fluxions (a mathematical presentation of Newton's
laws of motion and the ellipse requiring high school algebra)
/ 184

Newton's Laws, Kepler's Laws, and Calculus (a
calculus-based presentation of Newton's laws of motion and
the ellipse) / 207

Newton's Agenda / 224

9 RULE BREAKERS 225

Beginnings / 225

Debunking the Ether / 232

The Established and the Unknown / 240

Trouble / 246

Exiting the Quantum Universe / 249

Bending the Light / 251

An Ergodic Life / 252

Victory / 254

The Experiment / 259

The Famous and the Infamous / 260

Exodus / 264

The End / 267

Relativity / 268

Special Relativity (a mathematical presentation requiring high
school algebra) / 271

EPILOGUE 293

BIBLIOGRAPHY 295

INDEX 301

"Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division
undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general
readers." (Choice, 1 June 2012)