Summary of Gal Beckerman's The Quiet Before

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The astronomer Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc was the conductor of the eclipse. He was a self-disciplinarian who never wore silk, drank only white wine, and ate only lightly. He was also a connector of Europe’s greatest minds.

#2 Peiresc was a scientist who wrote and dictated letters to his friends and colleagues. He published no books, but he left behind 100,000 pieces of paper in the form of dispatches, memoranda, and reading notes, which represented his life’s work.

#3 Peiresc’s experiment was to see how many people could accurately observe the moon, and he sent letters to a bunch of people all over the world. He was hoping that the mechanics of the natural world would be understood collectively over generations.

#4 Peiresc was able to calculate longitude by having many people watch the same phenomenon in the sky and mark when they saw it. He first imagined such an orchestra of observation in 1610 when he was thirty and had just finished reading Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus nuncius, in which the astronomer detailed his telescopic discoveries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822533066

IRB Media

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Insights on Gal Beckerman's The Quiet Before

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The astronomer Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc was the conductor of the eclipse. He was a self-disciplinarian who never wore silk, drank only white wine, and ate only lightly. He was also a connector of Europe’s greatest minds.

#2

Peiresc was a scientist who wrote and dictated letters to his friends and colleagues. He published no books, but he left behind 100,000 pieces of paper in the form of dispatches, memoranda, and reading notes, which represented his life’s work.

#3

Peiresc’s experiment was to see how many people could accurately observe the moon, and he sent letters to a bunch of people all over the world. He was hoping that the mechanics of the natural world would be understood collectively over generations.

#4

Peiresc was able to calculate longitude by having many people watch the same phenomenon in the sky and mark when they saw it. He first imagined such an orchestra of observation in 1610 when he was thirty and had just finished reading Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus nuncius, in which the astronomer detailed his telescopic discoveries.

#5

The Republic was a collaborative venture that resembled a scientific journal. It was maintained through a patchwork of letters, and it was a laboratory in which ideas about civility were developed and lived.

#6

Peiresc was a prime example of how the French Republic was made up of a wide variety of people with different interests. He was an antiquarian, and his study was filled with books, manuscripts, and engravings. He had a love of nature and animals, and he grew many different kinds of fruit.

#7

Peiresc was able to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Aix, which was then off by more than two degrees. He wanted to measure the distance between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. He organized a smaller recording of