Search results for ""Author Alberto A. Martínez""
Johns Hopkins University Press Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity
The field of kinematics-the science of motion-has long been neglected and misrepresented. Despite rich traditions rooted in ancient times, modern physical kinematics never became a professional discipline. No journals or academic societies were founded to support its development and study and most physicists took the science of motion for granted. Yet some came to doubt its very principles, even denouncing its basic language-coordinate algebra-as an impediment to scientific progress. In this unique and comprehensive history of kinematics, Alberto A. Martinez rescues the forgotten roots of this field that led to Einstein's theory of special relativity. Using clear explanations and accessible language, he analyzes the development of kinematics; explains how mathematics, engineering, philosophy, and psychology pulled it in divergent directions; and discusses why modern kinematics inherited old and unresolved ambiguities. All students of physics and general science study basic kinematics. Martinez draws from an unparalleled wealth of sources to demonstrate why it is essential to the study and evolution of physics today.
£63.84
Reaktion Books Burned Alive: Giordano Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition
In 1600 the Catholic Inquisition condemned the philosopher Giordano Bruno for his heretical beliefs. He was then burned alive in a public place in Rome. Historians, scientists and teachers usually deny that Bruno was condemned for his beliefs about the universe and that his trial was linked to the later confrontations between the Inquisition and Galileo in 1616 and 1633. Based on new evidence, however, Burned Alive asserts that Bruno's beliefs about the universe were indeed the primary factors that led to Bruno's condemnation: his beliefs that the stars are suns surrounded by planetary worlds like our own, and that the Earth moves because it has a soul. Alberto A. Martinez shows how some of the same Inquisitors who judged Bruno also confronted Galileo in 1616. Ultimately the one clergyman who wrote the most critical reports used by the Inquisition to condemn Galileo in 1633 immediately wrote an unpublished manuscript, in which he denounced Galileo and other followers of Copernicus for believing that many worlds exist and that the Earth moves because it has a soul. This book challenges the accepted history of astronomy and shows how cosmology led Bruno bravely to his death.
£27.00
