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  • The Clockwork Universe

  • Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
  • By: Edward Dolnick
  • Narrated by: Alan Sklar
  • Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (49 ratings)
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The Clockwork Universe

By: Edward Dolnick
Narrated by: Alan Sklar
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Summary

The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.

At the end of the 17th century, an age of religious wars, plague, and the Great Fire of London when most people saw the world as falling apart, these earliest scientists saw a world of perfect order. They declared that, chaotic as it looked, the universe was in fact as intricate and perfectly regulated as a clock. This was the tail end of Shakespeare's century, when the natural and the supernatural still twined around each other. Disease was a punishment ordained by God, astronomy had not yet broken free from astrology, and the sky was filled with omens. It was a time when little was known and everything was new. These brilliant, ambitious, curious men believed in angels, alchemy, and the devil, and they also believed that the universe followed precise, mathematical laws, a contradiction that tormented them and changed the course of history. The Clockwork Universe is the fascinating and compelling story of the bewildered geniuses of the Royal Society, the men who made the modern world.

©2011 Edward Dolnick (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about The Clockwork Universe

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

some really interesting bits, but jumped about

I am interested in this period in history and this book provided lots of interesting details. However, at times it seemed to jump about a bit and I was not so comfortable with this lack of a strong flowing narrative

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

How much I learned about the people involved

I knew pretty much about Newton, Galileo en the other people in the book, but now I can imagine the kind of life, beliefs and the world in which they lived.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very interesting and informative...

I wasn't sure that I would really like the narrator of this audio book but he's very good 👍 and I soon got used to his style. The book is full of fascinating insight and details about Seventeenth Century science and society, and exp!ores the background of many of the Great men of that era, particularly Newton and Leibniz. I learned a lot about them that I wasn't aware of, or expecting. There were many details in this book that I had l hadn't come across before in previous science history books and biographies. Well worth it. Excellent..

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Unbelievable

It's unbelievable how much they discovered with the limited tools they had. Great book!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very good!

Very interesting "read". Very different world the fathers ot science have been seeing. A must for a scientific thinker.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant.

It concludes explaining how Newton established and set in motion the science that undermines a god and yet he was so devout in his belief of him. Many Christians I know see Newton in such an incorrect light I hope that more of them will read this fine book.

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