Scientific quest ... and this book: Off-center? It can't be! -- New age: Bringing new ways of seeing: What's to be made of Leonardo? -- On revolutions and fools -- Tycho Brahe: Taking heaven's measure: Holding a ruler to the sky -- Renaissance men -- Gazing at a star named Galileo -- Moving relatively or relatively moving? -- Are Novas really "new" stars? As to Supernovas--Wow!: About suns and stuff (Galileo didn't know any of this) -- Moving the Sun and the Earth: Who did invent the telescope? -- Do you think you have troubles: Getting along by staying apart: Religion and science -- Poor Kepler: These eccentric ellipses -- Descartes and his coordinates: At last, proof of the last -- What's the big attraction? -- Gravity--how absurd!: Calculus? Who done it? -- Newton sees the light -- Newton moves -- Fame finds Newton: Edmond Halley, Mr. Comet -- Dane lights the way: Clocking time (and speed) with Io: Here's the math -- What's the matter? (About elements and alchemy): Elemental tale -- Robert Boyle, skeptic--or airhead?: Is air something--or nothing? -- Daniel and the old lion hunter -- Brains and beauty squared -- It's a gas! Take its temperature!: Turning on the heat -- Weighing the world -- Right man for the job -- Man with a powerful hand: France sings a metric tune -- Dalton takes us back to Greece--and atoms -- Molecule-and-number man: Chemical bondage -- Putting things in order: Periodic table: Chemical family tree -- Heated story of an American spy -- Shocking science: Pendulum's proof -- Michael Faraday has a field day: Turning on the light -- Maxwell's charges: Again and again and again--that's frequency -- Bulldog Boltzmann: How fast is a gas? -- Inside the atom -- Wake up! This is about work, which takes energy: Information-age thinking in the Industrial Era -- Number-one law, thermodynamically speaking -- Obeying the (second) law -- Tying down a demon -- Nothing to do? -- Wrapping up and getting ready -- Suggested reading -- NSTA recommends -- Picture credits -- Permissions -- Scientific abbreviations -- Index.

Traces the period between Copernicus's theory about the sun's location at the center of the universe through the early days of atomic theory, offering introductory portraits of such contributors as Giordano Bruno, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.