Welcome to The book of science. Come here each week to find poetry and commentary on another milestone of the history of science.

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New this week

In 1609, Johannes Kepler published “Astronomia Nova” announcing that the orbits of planets are ellipses.

1609

Planetary orbits Teachings Foolish bird Commentary

Johannes Kepler astronomy

New recently

1605	Bacon’s cipher Bacon’s codes Baconian theories Commentary	Johannes Kepler cryptography
1600	Magnetism Experimental method Action at a distance Commentary	Johannes Kepler electromagnetism
1590 - 1608	Microscope and telescope Optical refracting Telescoping history Refracting Commentary	Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler, Johannes Kepler optics
1572	Supernova Science in his day In our day Commentary	Johannes Kepler astronomy
1569	Mercator projection Projections Loxodromes Commentary	Johannes Kepler cartography

Parts of this book

You may jump to some parts of The book of science directly by selecting menu items:

• About, more about this book
• Contents, a table of milestones in the history of science, arranged chronologically
• Elements, tables for the chemical elements
  • Periodic table of the elements
  • Index of elements by year of discovery
  • Index of elements by atomic number
• Scientists, index of scientists, by last name
• Sciences, index of sciences
• Eponymous, index of milestones named after scientists
• Keywords, index of keywords in poems and titles
• Search, where you can search the book by word or phrase

Related works

You may read subsets of The book of science as separate volumes. These generally contain only the last poem on each milestone from the full book:

• Elements of elements of science
• The booklet of science

This web site also includes other works by Tom Sharp and work by other poets.