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Rare Book Room Presents: Astronomy & Science, Treasures of the Knight Collection

Alfred Knight, who left his collection of rare books and manuscripts to the Phoenix Public Library in 1958, had a serious interest in astronomy and science. This talk will survey some of the rare and significant items he gathered, and the theories and breakthroughs they chart.

We will move from early European accounts of Arabic and classical astronomy, to Galileo writing in 1613 about his observations of sunspots - and John Milton namechecking Galileo, and those sunspots in Paradise Lost. We will consider competing models of the solar system, and new maps of the moon. We will stare into Isaac Newton’s Optics, and puzzle over his manuscript musings on the mysteries of Solomon’s Temple. Voltaire will explain Newton; Benjamin Franklin will fly a kite; William Herschel will observe a comet; Michael Faraday will be electric; and Charles Darwin will evolve.

Presented by Professor Jonathan Hope
Professor Hope is a specialist in Shakespeare’s language, the history of English, and computer text analysis. He came to ASU and Phoenix from Glasgow, Scotland five years ago. His most recent work has tried to debunk two myths about Shakespeare: that he invented thousands of words, and that he did not know or care about the Copernican revolution in astronomical theory.