Great Astronomers: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Great Astronomers, credited to Robert Stawell Ball, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Great Astronomers by Robert Stawell Ball. Read in English by MaryAnn Spiegel. Of all the natural sciences there is not one which offers such sublime objects to the attention of the inquirer as does the science of astronomy. From the earliest ages the study of the stars has exercised the same fascination as it possesses at the present day. Among the most primitive peoples, the movements of the sun, the moon, and the stars commanded attention from their supposed influence on human affairs. From the days of Hipparchus down to the present hour the science of astronomy has steadily grown. One great observer after another has appeared from time to time, to reveal some new phenomenon with regard to the celestial bodies or their movements, while from time to time one commanding intellect after another has arisen to explain the true import of the facts of observations. The history of astronomy thus becomes inseparable from the history of the great men to whose labours its development is due. In the ensuing chapters we have endeavoured to sketch the lives and the work of the great philosophers, by whose labours the science of astronomy has been created. (from the Introduction)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Great Astronomers
• Author credits: Robert Stawell Ball
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 19
• Listed recording duration: 9:15:30

Catalogue topics

• bradley
• astronomy
• Galileo
• Isaac Newton
• history of astronomy
• hamilton
• ptolemy
• copernicus

Track guide

1. 00 - Preface and Introduction — 11:49
2. 01 - Ptolemy — 35:38
3. 02 - Copernicus — 18:47
4. 03 - Tycho Brahe — 28:20
5. 04 - Galileo — 43:26
6. 05 - Kepler — 28:17
7. 06 - Isaac Newton — 44:32
8. 07 - Flamsteed — 22:34
9. 08 - Halley — 38:43
10. 09 - Bradley — 21:50
11. 10 - William Herschel — 23:48
12. 11 - Laplace — 21:20
13. 12 - Brinkley — 21:24
14. 13 - John Herschel — 37:02
15. 14 - The Earl of Rosse — 21:32
16. 15 - Airy — 21:52
17. 16 - Hamilton — 51:52
18. 17 - Le Verrier — 33:02
19. 18 - Adams — 29:42

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.