About this item
William Shakespeare lived at a remarkable time--a period we now recognize as the first phase of the Scientific Revolution. New ideas were transforming Western thought, the medieval was giving way to the modern, and the work of a few key figures hinted at the brave new world to come: the methodical and rational Galileo, the skeptical Montaigne, and--as Falk convincingly argues--Shakespeare, who observed human nature just as intently as the astronomers who studied the night sky.In The Science of Shakespeare, we meet a colorful cast of Renaissance thinkers, including Thomas Digges, who published the first English account of the "new astronomy" and lived in the same neighborhood as Shakespeare; Thomas Harriot--"England's Galileo"--who aimed a telescope at the night sky months ahead of his Italian counterpart; and Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, whose observatory-castle stood within sight of Elsinore, chosen by Shakespeare as the setting for Hamlet--and whose family crest happened to include the names "Rosencrans" and "Guildensteren.
About the Author
Dan Falk (born 1966) is a Canadian science journalist, broadcaster, and author. He has written for the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Walrus, Cottage Life, SkyNews, Astronomy and New Scientist, and has contributed to the CBC radio programs Ideas, Quirks and Quarks, Tapestry and Spark. He has published two books: Universe on a T-Shirt was the winner of the 2002 Science in Society Journalism Award from the Canadian Science Writers’ Association, as well as the John and Margaret Savage First Book Award, part of the Atlantic Book Awards.
