Boxer, Alexander (Author)
W. W. Norton & Co.
Physical Details: 320 pp.
Language: English
An illuminating look at the surprising history and science of astrology, civilization’s first system of algorithms, from Babylon to the present day.Humans are pattern-matching creatures, and astrology is our grandest pattern-matching game. In this refreshing work of history and analysis, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines classical texts on astrology to expose its underlying scientific and mathematical framework. 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,” or horoscope, is recognized as pseudoscience today, but was once considered a cutting-edge scientific tool. Not only does Boxer trace different applications of horoscopes back to their origins, he also puts them to the test using modern data sets and statistical science, arguing that today’s data scientists do work similar to astrologers of yore.At once critical, rigorous, and far-ranging, A Scheme of Heaven recontextualizes astrology as a vast, technological project―spanning continents and centuries―that foreshadowed our data-driven world today. 100 illustrations; 16 pages of color images
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Terio, Simonetta;
(2005)
Keplers Horoskop des Kaisers Augustus
(/isis/citation/CBB000640271/)
Thesis
Maria Americo;
(2019)
An Analysis of Ninth-Century Reception of Claudius Ptolemy's Astronomy in the Arabic Tradition
(/isis/citation/CBB318402630/)
Book
Gerrit Bos;
Charles Burnett;
(2000)
Scientific Weather Forecasting in the Middle Ages: The Writings of Al-Kindī: Studies, Editions, and Translations
(/isis/citation/CBB075390459/)
Book
Kushyar ibn Labban al-Jili;
Benno van Dalen;
(2022)
Ptolemaic Tradition and Islamic Innovation: The Astronomical Tables of Kushyar ibn Labban
(/isis/citation/CBB677092636/)
Article
Raúl Caballero-Sánchez;
(2021)
On the chronology of the Anonymous Commentary to Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos: Analysis of the astronomical evidence
(/isis/citation/CBB237975004/)
Article
Adamson, Peter;
(2006)
Vision, Light and Color in al-Kindī, Ptolemy and the Ancient Commentators
(/isis/citation/CBB000671184/)
Article
Granada, Miguel A.;
(2006)
Helisaeus Röslin on the Eve of the Appearance of the Nova of 1604: His Eschatological Expectations and His Intellectual Career as Recored in the “Ratio studiorum et operum meorum” (1603-1604)
(/isis/citation/CBB000741211/)
Article
Sela, Shlomo;
(2013)
A Newly Identified Essay on Anniversary Horoscopy Embedded in Abraham Bar Ḥiyya's Astronomical Tables: Hebrew Edition, Translation and Commentary
(/isis/citation/CBB001211758/)
Article
Andreas Winkler;
(2022)
On the demotic-hieratic horoscopes from Athribis
(/isis/citation/CBB632632403/)
Article
Kennedy, Edward S.;
(2009)
Al-Battānī's Astrological History of the Prophet and the Early Caliphate
(/isis/citation/CBB001023951/)
Book
Frommhold, Katrin;
(2004)
Bedeutung und Berechnung der Empfängnis in der Astrologie der Antike
(/isis/citation/CBB000640324/)
Book
Pompeo Faracovi, Ornella;
(1999)
Gli oroscopi di Cristo
(/isis/citation/CBB000660485/)
Article
Juste, David;
(2013)
Les textes astrologiques latins attribués à Aristote
(/isis/citation/CBB001420830/)
Chapter
Geoffrey Cornelius;
(2015)
Interpreting Interpretations: The Aphorism in the Practice of the Renaissance Astrologers
(/isis/citation/CBB047002451/)
Article
Dorian Greenbaum;
Alexander Jones;
(2017)
P.Berl. 9825: An Elaborate Horoscope for 319 CE and its Significance for Greek Astronomical and Astrological Practice
(/isis/citation/CBB524574357/)
Chapter
N. M. Swerdlow;
(2016)
Cardano’s Malicious Horoscope and Gaurico’s Morbid Horoscope of Regiomontanus
(/isis/citation/CBB160571215/)
Book
Caterina Guenzi;
(2021)
Words of Destiny: Practicing Astrology in North India
(/isis/citation/CBB318179740/)
Article
Oestmann, Günther;
(2003)
Tycho Brahe's Geniture
(/isis/citation/CBB000600091/)
Article
Rodríguez Arribas, Josefina;
(2003)
Un horóscopo de Israel en el Comentario a Números de Abraham ibn “Ezra”
(/isis/citation/CBB000640302/)
Article
Quinlan-McGrath, Mary;
(2001)
The Foundation Horoscope(s) for St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, 1506: Choosing a Time, Changing the Storia
(/isis/citation/CBB000671244/)
Journal for the History of Astronomy
ISAW Papers
Suhayl: Journal for the History of the Exact and Natural Sciences in Islamic Civilisation
Sudhoffs Archiv: Zeitschrift fuer Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Micrologus: Natura, Scienze e Società Medievali
Be the first to comment!