A Comprehensible Universe

The Drama of Rationality.- Discovery that the World is Rational.- Should the Astronomer Look into the Sky?.- Seven Fighters against Thebes.- How to Count the Grains of Sand.- Is the World Rational?.- The Input of Christianity.- Christianity on the Scene.- Theology and Science in the Epoch of the Church Fathers.- The Medieval Contribution.- Discovery of the Method.- Achilles and the Arrow.- The Dynamics of Aristotle.- Three Generations: From Tartaglia to Galileo.- Birth of the Method.- Is the World Mathematical?.- Mathematics at Work.- Afterthoughts.- Afterthoughts.

George V. Coyne, S.J. Director Emeritus of the Vatican Observatory was born January 19, 1933, in Baltimore. A member of the Society of Jesus since the age of 18, he completed the licentiate in sacred theology at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1965. He joined the Vatican Observatory as an astronomer in 1969 and became an assistant professor at the LPL in 1970. In 1976 he became a senior research fellow at the LPL and a lecturer in the UA Department of Astronomy. The following year he served as Director of the UA's Catalina Observatory and as Associate Director of the LPL.

Coyne became Director of the Vatican Observatory in 1978, and also Associate Director of the UA Steward Observatory. During 1979-80 he served as Acting Director and Head of the UA Steward Observatory and the Astronomy Department, and thereafter he continued as an adjunct professor in the University of Arizona Astronomy Department. As Director of the Vatican Observatory he was a driving force in several new educational and research initiatives. He retired as Director in August 2006, and after spending a sabbatical year in Rayleigh, NC, he remains on the staff of the Vatican Observatory. Among his honors has been the naming of a comet after him.

Coyne's research interests have been in polarimetric studies of various subjects including the interstellar medium, stars with extended atmospheres and Seyfert galaxies, which are a group of spiral galaxies with very small and unusually bright star like centers. (Polarimetry is the technique of measuring or analyzing the polarization of light. When light rays exhibit different properties in different directions, the light is said to be polarized.) Most recently he has been studying the polarization produced in cataclysmic variables, or interacting binary star systems that give off sudden bursts of intense energy, and dust about young stars. He is an active member of the International Astronomical

From the reviews:



"George Coyne and Michael Heller explore the deep roots of the mystery of rationality. The new book emphasizes the need for rational argument in all attempts to understand our world. ... It had its origin in a series of university lectures delivered by Michael Heller to students of mathematics, physics, and other natural sciences who ... possessed the natural curiosity typical of their future professions. ... It aims to open up broader, deeper vistas - to the very roots of rationality." (Joan Robinson, EurekAlert!, June, 2008)