Click here for NICC Library Webpage
Click here for NICC Library Webpage
 Search 
 My Account 
 ID Information 
 Calmar New Materials 
 Peosta New Materials 
   
Advanced AlphabeticalBasicHistory
Search:    Refine Search  
> You're searching: Northeast Iowa Community College
 
Item Information
 HoldingsHoldings
 
 
 More by this author
 
  •  
  • Dvorak, John (John J.), author.
     
     Subjects
     
  •  
  • Solar eclipses -- History.
     
  •  
  • Total solar eclipses -- History.
     
  •  
  • Saros cycle.
     
  •  
  • Solar eclipses -- History.
     
  •  
  • Science -- Astronomy.
     
  •  
  • Science -- Cosmology.
     
  •  
  • Science -- History
     
  •  
  • Science -- Space Science.
     
  •  
  • Science -- Astronomy.
     
     Browse Catalog
      by author:
     
  •  
  •  Dvorak, John (John J.), author.
     
      by title:
     
  •  
  •  Mask of the sun : th...
     
     
     
     MARC Display
    Mask of the sun : the science, history, and forgotten lore of eclipses / John Dvorak.
    by Dvorak, John (John J.), author.
    New York, NY : Pegasus Books Ltd., [2017]
    Description: 
    xxvii, 272 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm
    Edition: 
    First Pegasus books edition.
    Contents: 
    Prologue : New York, 1925 -- The heretic and the Pope -- The invisible planets of Rahu and Ketu -- Saros and the substitute king -- Measuring the world -- The waste of yin -- A request to the curious -- The annulus at Inch Bonney -- A simple truth of nature -- Eclipse chasers -- Keys and kettledrums -- The crucifixion and the Concorde -- Einstein's error -- The glorious corona -- Epilogue : Illinois, 2017 -- Appendix : an eclipse primer.
    Summary: 
    Eclipses have stunned, frightened, emboldened and mesmerized people for thousands of years. They have been thought of as harbingers of evil as well as a sign of the divine. An amazing phenomena unique to Earth, they 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. Dvorak provides explanations as to how and why eclipses occur-- as well as insight into the forthcoming eclipse of 2017 that will be visible across North America.
    What do Virginia Woolf, the rotation of hurricanes, Babylonian kings and Einstein's General Theory Relativity all have in common? Eclipses. Always spectacular and, today, precisely predicable, eclipses have allowed us to know when the first Olympic games were played and, long before the first space probe, that the Moon was covered by dust. 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 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--as well as insight into the forthcoming eclipse of 2017 that will be visible across North America.
    Add to my list 
    Copy/Holding information
    LocationCollectionCall No.CopyStatus 
    Calmar Campus LibraryCirculation Stacks (Calmar)523.7 Dvo2017Checked InAdd Copy to MyList

    Format:HTMLPlain textDelimited
    Subject: 
    Email to:


    Horizon Information Portal 3.25_9807
     Powered by SirsiDynix
    © 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.
    Horizon Information Portal