Armchair Astronomer — Cosmic Verses: Pyramids to Stonehenge

Ken Vanlew joins us via Zoom to share his insights into The Cosmic Verses: A Rhyming History of the Universe (2006). British astronomer and author James Muirden uses witty, rhythmic poetry to detail human developments in understanding astronomy. Beginning with the pyramids and continuing to Stonehenge, he describes how Hipparchus discovered precession, and Eratosthenes measured the Earth, but Aristotle set science back 2,000 years. Copernicus saw the Sun, not Earth, as the center, but Galileo was sentenced to house arrest because he dared to say that the Earth moved. A lot to discuss about our planet and our universe.