Tracing the history of astrology from the age of the pharaohs to the modern newspaper horoscope, data scientist Alexander Boxer introduces exponents including Ptolemy, Kepler and al-Kindi. He explains and tests astrological techniques and shows how ‘the arch-pseudoscience’ still appeals to our tendency to seek patterns in random events and objects and our desire to predict the future.
'A delightful and utterly fascinating work of intellectual history.' Joshua Foer author of Moonwalking with Einstein
Despite a resurgence in popularity, horoscopes are generally considered to be pseudoscience today - but they were once a cutting-edge scientific tool. In this ingenious work of history, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines a treasure trove of esoteric classical sources to expose the deep imaginative framework by which - for millennia - we made sense of our fates. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world's most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a grand data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history's most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler.
A Scheme of Heaven explores the wonderful subtleties of astrological ideas. Telling the stories of their inventors and most influential exponents, Boxer puts them through their paces using modern data sets - finding that the methods of today's scientists are often uncomfortably close to those of astrology's ancient sages.
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https://www.psbooks.co.uk/scheme-of-heaven514958A Scheme of Heavenhttps://www.psbooks.co.uk/media/catalog/product/5/1/514958_cfcb0577cbeb2cebe71d9bc187a802e3.jpg3.999.99GBPInStock/Non-Fiction/Categories/Mind, Body & Spirit/Non-Fiction/Highlights/Space Travel/Non-Fiction/Highlights/Non-Fiction/Categories/Science & Nature/Astronomy/Non-Fiction/Categories/Science & Nature/Sale/Sale/Non-Fiction Sale<p> Tracing the history of astrology from the age of the pharaohs to the modern newspaper horoscope, data scientist Alexander Boxer introduces exponents including Ptolemy, Kepler and al-Kindi. He explains and tests astrological techniques and shows how ‘the arch-pseudoscience’ still appeals to our tendency to seek patterns in random events and objects and our desire to predict the future.</p>Hardback00add-to-cartrrp_info:£25.00productId:58045bic_code:PDX, PGT, VXFA, WNXPDX, PGT, VXFA, WNX£25.00Alexander BoxerGeneral232x150mmProfileNoHardback
