Even more so than Claudius Ptolemy’s Almagest, Nicolaus Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres reads today like a strange mishmash of brilliant innovation and obstinate pedantry. The parts of it that seem most obviously important to us are the earliest pages. Ironically, though, it was the later chapters, which appear far less impressive … Continue reading Chapter 3: The Book That Some People Read