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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This week

In 1671, Giovanni Cassini measured the parallax of Mars to calculate the distances between the sun and all the planets.

1671	Planetary distances The astronomical unit Astrology Commentary	Giovanni Domenico Cassini astronomy

Recently

1670, 1886	Palynology Fossil palynology Politics Commentary	Nehemiah Grew, Robert Kidston palynology
1669	Phosphorus Atomic number 15 Stuff that glows Commentary	Hamburg—Hennig Brand elements
1669	Birefringence Iceland spar Double vision Commentary	Rasmus Bartholin optics
1669	Epigenesis Genesis Ephemeri Commentary	Jan Swammerdam entomology
1669	Stratigraphy Principles Time and logic Commentary	Nicolas Steno stratigraphy
1668, 1669	Fundamental theorem of calculus Derivative and integral Limits Commentary	James Gregory, Isaac Barrow mathematics
1668, 1799	Metric system Eighths Units Conversion Metric prefixing Commentary	John Wilkins (and the French Revolution) metrology
1668	Parasites Parasitism The good host Commentary	Francesco Redi parasitology

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.