In her latest book, Chasing Venus, Andrea Wulf tells the extraordinary story of the first global scientific collaboration, set amid warring armies, hurricanes, scientific endeavor and personal tragedy. On 6 June 1761 and 3 June 1769 the planet Venus passed between Earth and Sun – each time visible as a small black dot against the burning face of the Sun for six hours. Transits of Venus always arrive in pairs – eight years apart – but then it takes more than a century before they are seen again. In the 1760s the world’s scientific community was electrified because the transit would allow them for the first time to calculate the distance between the planets in our solar system. This would require triangulated data to be compiled from various exact points dotted all around the four corners of the globe – all taken simultaneously during the short period of the actual Transit. Hundreds of astronomers from European countries and the North American colonies were dispatched across the world to observe the rare celestial encounter. At a time when war was tearing Europe and much of the rest of the world apart, they overcame political, geographical and intellectual boundaries. Chasing Venus is told as a race across the world. Rich with tales of obsession, and featuring pirates, plagues, astronomers and scientists including Catherine the Great and Benjamin Franklin, the book bursts with action, wonderful detail and scientific excitement, revealing the spirit of the Enlightenment and man’s quest to understand the world. Andrea Wulf trained as a design historian at the Royal College of Art in London before becoming a full-time writer. She is the author of three books and has written for the Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and LA Times. She writes reviews for The Guardian, New York Times Sunday Book Review, Times Literary Supplement and the Mail on Sunday.
This event is free but pre-registration is requested by contacting Lexington Community Education at 781 862 8043.
This evening is co-sponsored by Lexington Community Education and the Lexington Historical Society.
