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Mask of the Sun

Audiobook
Eclipses have stunned, frightened, emboldened, and mesmerized people for thousands of years. They were recorded on ancient turtle shells discovered in the Wastes of Yin in China, on clay tablets from Mesopotamia and on the Mayan "Dresden Codex." They are mentioned in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and at least eight times in the Bible. Columbus used them to trick people, while Renaissance painter Taddeo Gaddi was blinded by one. Sorcery was banished within the Catholic Church after astrologers used an eclipse to predict a pope's death. In Mask of the Sun, acclaimed writer John Dvorak explains the importance of the number 177 and why the ancient Romans thought it was bad to have sexual intercourse during an eclipse (whereas other cultures thought it would be good luck). Even today, pregnant women in Mexico wear safety pins on their underwear during an eclipse. Eclipses are an amazing phenomena-unique to Earth-that have provided the key to much of what we now know and understand about the sun, our moon, gravity, and the workings of the universe. Both entertaining and authoritative, Mask of the Sun reveals the humanism behind the science of both lunar and solar eclipses. With insightful detail and vividly accessible prose, Dvorak provides explanations as to how and why eclipses occur.

Expand title description text
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc. Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781541497962
  • File size: 264445 KB
  • Release date: October 31, 2017
  • Duration: 09:10:55

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781541497962
  • File size: 264471 KB
  • Release date: October 31, 2017
  • Duration: 09:16:54
  • Number of parts: 10

Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

Science Nonfiction

Languages

English

Eclipses have stunned, frightened, emboldened, and mesmerized people for thousands of years. They were recorded on ancient turtle shells discovered in the Wastes of Yin in China, on clay tablets from Mesopotamia and on the Mayan "Dresden Codex." They are mentioned in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and at least eight times in the Bible. Columbus used them to trick people, while Renaissance painter Taddeo Gaddi was blinded by one. Sorcery was banished within the Catholic Church after astrologers used an eclipse to predict a pope's death. In Mask of the Sun, acclaimed writer John Dvorak explains the importance of the number 177 and why the ancient Romans thought it was bad to have sexual intercourse during an eclipse (whereas other cultures thought it would be good luck). Even today, pregnant women in Mexico wear safety pins on their underwear during an eclipse. Eclipses are an amazing phenomena-unique to Earth-that have provided the key to much of what we now know and understand about the sun, our moon, gravity, and the workings of the universe. Both entertaining and authoritative, Mask of the Sun reveals the humanism behind the science of both lunar and solar eclipses. With insightful detail and vividly accessible prose, Dvorak provides explanations as to how and why eclipses occur.

Expand title description text
  • Details

    Publisher:
    Tantor Media, Inc.
    Edition:
    Unabridged

    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    ISBN: 9781541497962
    File size: 264445 KB
    Release date: October 31, 2017
    Duration: 09:10:55

    MP3 audiobook
    ISBN: 9781541497962
    File size: 264471 KB
    Release date: October 31, 2017
    Duration: 09:16:54
    Number of parts: 10

  • Creators
  • Formats
    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    MP3 audiobook
  • Languages
    English