Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

Probably how he looks at all us technology guys too! Technology guys need to get past our thin skins and ignore the well-written, deep-disguised digs, ostensibly (and literally) aimed at all sorts of scientists back in the days of Copernicus, to include belittling the Man himself from time to time. Vollmann is an excellent writer, and brings to the world of 16th century astronomy more than just a colorfully descriptive style, but also a profound compliment for what science does through the ages. He's a fiction writer "normally," and uses color effectively -- otherwise, he couldn't sell much fiction! Think about how matter-of-fact so much of what is published in science fields today, and wonder how much more interesting they might be if a fiction writer took a turn at nonfiction as Vollmann did! True, there are much better texts on any of the science topics treated in "Uncentering the Earth." True also, the author probably did deep research on those specific pieces of science about which he wrote, sometimes in considerable detail; and these spots of good reporting sometimes seem poorly connected with each other. Still, the reader might be delighted that a fiction writer could actually pull this off. Nevertheless, if the readers seek a detailed account of Copernicus and his work, or of the advances of science in the 16th century, or of which persons passed along what bits of knowledge at that time, then this book will probably not do. Understandably so. If instead one would like a fresh (and sometimes slightly insulting) way to look at this particular famous person of Copernicus for perspective, then "Uncentering" might be just the distraction. It can be frustrating in this work, though, to pin down specifically why the author admires Nicolaus Copernicus. Although he speaks those words a couple times through the book, the reasons are fuzzy and somewhat unconnected with the text around it (see if you can find them!) This reviewer personally concludes that Mr. Vollmann believes that Copernicus changed astronomy (and hence science?) into a predictive way of thinking, rather than a reactive way. That's would be an excellent compliment indeed.

I completely understand the negative reviews this book has received. But I would like to defend this book, which I believe is worth the time and effort. This is a disappointing book if you are reading it for the wrong reason. The wrong reason is if you are reading this book as an astronomy buff who wants to learn more about Copernicus. Again, that is a very understandable mistake to make. By all appearances, it looks to be a serious academic discussion of the work of Copernicus and its role in the scientific paradigm shift. The right reason to read this book is not as an astronomy buff but as a William T. Vollman buff. I can't get enough of Vollman's writing. And he can't seem to stop writing so it's a good match (this is a writer, for example, who has completed an over 3,000 page essay on the nature of violence). Vollman has the gift of being able to encompass the full depth of the human experience in every sentence he writes. When he writes of ecstatic happiness, he manages to imbed it with hints of cruelty and suffering. When he writes about tragedy and death, there are twisted traces of sweetness and cathartic joy. I'm a fan of the history of science and good science writing too. And while this book might not be the most straightforward way to learn about Copernicus, there is factual information here about Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres." We are also given Vollman's meditations on the nature of scientific revolutions and the way science as a process will always be hampered by human imperfection, by our individual investments in our beliefs, and by the stubborn drag of institutional momentum. "'Revolutions' was profoundly dangerous in its epoch, and hence profoundly necessary." Why would Vollman take on this task? He tells us this book is the result of an "exercise in explicating a subject slightly beyond my intellectual competence." But, when he marvels at the effort, "the immensity of the force required" and the "solitary years" behind Copernicus' work, we get a sense of the parallel process driving Vollman's own desires to nudge the universe.

It's interesting that so many of the defining moments in history involved Uncentering something from something else. For instance, Thomas Willis realized that the seat of reason and intelligence was neither the heart nor the soul, but a lump of jelly in the skull. Darwin first figured out that the homo sapiens is just one twig in the tree of life. And before Willis and Darwin there was Copernicus, who is credited with discovering that the Earth, far from being the center of the universe, revolves around the sun along with all the other planets. There's something about human psychology that resists Uncentering, and back then the gecocentrists had mountains of religious and philosophical text to back them up. Needless to say heliocentrism was an unpopular idea, and in 16th century Europe people with unpopular ideas were burned along with their books. Copernicus was spared this fate, partly because of an apologetic (and unauthorized) preface, and partly by the fact that he died of natural causes shortly after the publication of his book in 1543. Copernicus's successors, Bruno and Galileo, ended up taking a lot of the flak. William T. Vollmann is an excellent writer, and he does a fabulous job of summarizing Revolutions. Using limited astro-jargon and a few figures, Vollmann explains how Copernicus calculated the positions and trajectories of the planets, often arriving quite close to modern estimates without the benefit of a telescope or even binoculars. He also describes how Copernicus had to grapple with the prevalent Ptolemaic system and its philosophical roots. Remarkably, Copernicus, despite his revolutionary worldview, could never bring himself to abandon the philosophical tradition that valued circles for their asthetic appeal. His heliocentric system thus featured circular orbits, and was consequently almost as complicated as Ptolemy's geocentric model. It would be another 50 years before Kepler cleaned up the mess by introducing elliptical orbits to the heliocentric model. In the end Copernicus was successful in uncentering the Earth. This was a real breakthrough, and not just because he was right about heliocentrism. The Uncentered viewpoint is just the idea that things in the universe can be studied objectively and empirically, without recourse to mysticism. Today we just call it science.