SIGNED – OWEN GINGERICH – RARA ASTRONOMICA – HARVARD LIB BULLETIN, V. 19 1971
SIGNED – PROFESSOR OWEN GINGERICH – RARA ASTRONOMICA HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN, Vol. 19, Number 2 April 1971
 Publisher: Harvard University, Cambridge (1971)
In well preserved condition. The softcover wraps are solid and tight with some light stains. The pages are crisp and clean. Signed by Professor Gingerich on the top corner of the front cover. The bulletin focuses on the rare astronomy book collection at Harvard University, with a look at some scarce astronomy illustrations. Gingerich is a well noted historical astronomy author and professor at Harvard University. Please see below for more information on Mr. Gingerich.
Biography of Owen Gingrich
Owen Gingerich is is professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. In addition to his research and teaching, he has written many books on the history of astronomy. Gingerich was eventually led to teach astronomy at Harvard where his lectures became noted for attention-getting devices. Amongst these was propelling himself out of the classroom with a fire extinguisher to demonstrate Newton’s third law of motion and dressing up like a sixteenth-century Latin scholar. He also is associated with the Smithsonian and served as chairman of the International Astronomical Union’s Planet Definition Committee, which was charged with updating the astronomical definition of planet to reflect recent discoveries such as Eris.
Gingerich is a widely recognized authority on both Johannes Kepler and Nicolaus Copernicus, especially in regard to his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. He is also an expert on Galileo’s astronomical observations, and took a leading role in establishing that the watercolor lunar images in a celebrated copy of Galileo’s Sidereus nuncius were modern forgeries and not made by Galileo. At Harvard, Gingerich taught “The Astronomical Perspective,” a core science course for non-scientists, which at the time of his retirement in 2000 was the longest-running course under the same management at the University.  He was known for his creativity in teaching, using, for example, medieval costumes and fire extinguishers. A notable example was when in one semester, when the number of students signing up for the course lagged, Gingerich hired a plane to fly over Harvard Yard with a banner: “Sci A-17. M, W, F. Try it!”. In 1984, he won the Harvard-Radcliffe Phi Beta Kappa prize for excellence in teaching. In addition to over 20 books, Gingerich has published nearly 600 technical or educational articles and reviews, and he has written many other articles for a popular audience. Two anthologies of his essays have been released, The Great Copernicus Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical History from Cambridge University Press and The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler in the American Institute of Physics “Masters of Modern Physics” series.
