Books in Signature%20Lives:%20Scientific%20Revolution series

Robert Hooke is best known for his studies of light, sound, and microscopic beings. Sometimes called England’s Leonardo da Vinci, Hooke’s works included detailed drawings and descriptions of his observations of nature, and he was a creative genius and inventor. Although Hooke had enemies who felt that he did not deserve credit for his experiments, he never stopped working and studying. Robert Hooke devoted his life to learning more about the modern world, and many of his findings are used today.

A biography profiling the life of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who shared the beliefs of the controversial astronomer Copernicus that the Earth revolved around the sun. Eventually Galielo was found guilty of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church, and forced to live under house arrest for the final years of his life. Includes source notes and timeline.

Sixteenth-century geographer Gerardus Mercator was born in 1512 in Rupelmonde, Flanders. He lived during a time of religious strife and for a time was imprisoned for heresy. Mercator began his career as a maker of mathematical instruments, but he won lasting renown with his world map of 1569, which introduced a new way of showing the spherical earth on a flat sheet of paper. This method, called the Mercator projection, is still used today. His 1585 book, titled Atlas, was the first to use that word to describe a collection of maps.

Tycho Brahe was an eccentric Danish astronomer in the 1500s. Growing up in the wealthy home of his uncle, he was provided with the freedom to pursue his ambitions in life. While attending college, Tycho viewed a solar eclipse, which scholars had predicted would happen. He was fascinated that science could predict such phenomenal events, and he devoted much of his time to studying the heavens. Using modern instruments and techniques to measure the positions of the stars and the movements of the planets, Brahe revolutionized the way astronomers viewed the night sky.

Isaac Newton was a scientific genius whose discoveries changed the way people thought about the world. He solved complex mathematical problems and invented the branch of mathematics called calculus. He investigated light and through experiments proved its relationship to color. And he established universal principles about how gravity, force, and motion work and are related. These principles became known as Newton’s laws. Underneath Newton’s public image as a genius was a man with real problems and failings, a complicated, sometimes unpleasant person whose interests and desires did not always match his legend.

A biography profiling the life of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who shared the beliefs of the controversial astronomer Copernicus that the Earth revolved around the sun. Eventually Galielo was found guilty of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church, and forced to live under house arrest for the final years of his life. Includes source notes and timeline.