Preface 9
Introduction 15
PART ONE：THE HEROIC AGE 17
1 Dawn 19
2 The Harmony of the Spheres 26
3 The Earth Adrift 43
4 The Failure of Nerve 53
5 The Divorce from Reality 66
Chronological Table to Part One 84
PART TWO：DARK INTERLUDE 85
1 The Rectangular Universe 87
2 The Walled-in Universe 97
3 The Universe of the Schoolmen 107
Chronological Table to Part Two 117
PART THREE：THE TIMID CANON 119
1 The Life of Copernicus 121
2 The System of Copernicus 194
Chronological Table to Part Three 223
PART FOUR：THE WATERSHED 225
1 The Young Kepler 227
2 The ＇Cosmic Mystery＇ 249
3 Growing Pains 270
4 Tycho de Brahe 286
5 Tycho and Kepler 305
6 The Giving of the Laws 317
7 Kepler Depressed 349
8 Kepler and Galileo 357
9 Chaos and Harmony 384
10 Computing a Bride 405
11 The Last Years 411
PART FIVE：THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 429
1 The Burden of Proof 431
2 The Trial of Galileo 471
3 The Newtonian Synthesis 504
Chronological Table to Parts Four and Five 518
EPILOGUE 521
Selected Bibliography 557
Notes 561
Index 617