• From monks to medicine
• An advanced civilization
• Everything in its right place
• The seduction
• "Ignorance of motion is ignorance of nature"
• A world of machines
• The geometry of hell
• Torturing nature
• In the shadow of the leaning tower
• Paduan pleasantness
• Earth displaced
• An ill wind
• A star is born
• Desegregation
• The Pax Romana
• A new friend
• The theological turn
• Warning signs
• The crux
• Copernicus makes the list
• Escaping the labyrinth
• New hope
• The dialogue
• "An outburst of rage"
• Vehement suspicion of heresy
• The trojan horse
• Death and rehabilitation.

• ch. 1. Quarks and quasars
• ch. 2. Against the odds
• ch. 3. Galileo's eyes
• ch. 4. Einstein connection
• ch. 5. Black-hole encounter
• ch. 6. Exploding black holes
• ch. 7. Final question
• ch. 8. Bubble or bang
• ch. 9. Anthropic principle.

Describes the theoretical work of the outstanding British physicist Stephen Hawking, who has done noteworthy work in cosmology.

Biography of the man who invented the telescope and proved the earth revolves around the sun. Includes activities.

• Introduction--
• 1. The young astronomer Erwin Finlay Freundlich--
• 2. A theorist's observer: Freundlich's collaboration with Einstein from 1911--
• 3. Relativity theory under scrutiny: experimental testing--
• 4. Statistical investigations of gravitational redshift, 1915-1916--
• 5. Berlin science politics: support for Freundlich from 1913--
• 6. Astrophysics at Potsdam and elsewhere--
• 7. Erich Mendelsohn and the tower telescope design--
• 8. Research at the Eistein Tower during the Freundlich era--
• 9. The solar eclipse expedition of 1929--
• 10. Clashes between Freundlich and Ludendorff--
• 11. Political transition and exile--
• 12. A solitary fate: photon-photon interacti on--
• 13. A bird's-eye view-- Reference matter-- Abbreviations in the Notes-- Notes-- References-- Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This text focuses on the Einstein Tower, an architecturally historic observatory built in Potsdam in 1920 to allow the German astronomer Erwin Finlay Freundlich to attempt to verify experimentally Einstein's general theory of relativity. Freundlich, who was the first German astronomer to show a genuine interest in Einstein's theory, managed to interest his architect friend Erich Mendelsohn in designing this unique building. Freundlich's researches were not a success; he came to doubt the very theory he was attempting to prove. (Adequate technology to test Einstein's theory lay many decades in the future.) By contrast, as an experiment in modernist architecture, the building led to international fame for Mendelsohn. To develop a full historical picture of this moment in the history of science, the book interweaves several descriptive levels: the biography of Freundlich; the social context in which he interacted with teachers, co-workers, students, his patrons (including Einstein), and scientific opponents; the cognitive aspects of his attempts to verify Einstein's theory; the political milieu within the Berlin scientific research community; and a cross-national comparison of astrophysics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)