In the tradition of Longitude comes this story of the telescope and mankindThe human race has not always lived in an infinite universe: for centuries, the earth spun at the center of a giant sphere, and the starlit dome of the night sky marked the ultimate boundary of the cosmos.The quirky tales of the men who pushed those heavenly limits further and further outward make up Seeing and Believing, Richard Panek's engaging and often amusing account of the telescope, and its significant role in revising humanity's perception of the universe. From Galileo's momentous achievement in 1609 and William Herschel (the musician-turned-astronomer who discovered Uranus) to the crazy brilliance of George Ellery Hale and the minds behind the mighty Hubble space telescope, Panek focuses on the often larger-than-life figures behind our cosmological odyssey. Seemlessly fusing elements of philosophy, politics, literature, and religion, Seeing and Believing chronicles the human mind as it contemplates an ever widening universe."Mr. Panek writes about science with practiced fluency. If you haven't yet gotten matter like quasars, pulsars and gamma rays entirely straight in your mind, this book will prove invaluable." --The New York Times