Von Sonnen und Sonnenstäubchen : Kosmische Wanderungen by Wilhelm Bölsche
"Von Sonnen und Sonnenstäubchen : Kosmische Wanderungen" by Wilhelm Bölsche is a collection of popular-science essays written in the early 20th century. The volume ranges across astronomy, geology, evolution, and animal life, blending travel vignette, philosophy, and clear exposition to make modern science vivid to general readers. Its unifying theme is a human-scaled tour through cosmic and natural history, from suns to “sun-dust,” showing how scientific facts cohere into a larger, poetic
vision of the world. The opening of the volume begins with a preface that calls Earth and humanity “sun-dust” and states the aim of throwing clarifying light onto the heaped “dust” of modern facts so they shine as a unified whole. It then follows a night hike in the Riesengebirge, where a tear in the fog reveals the Milky Way and sparks a sweeping meditation from ancient myth and medieval spheres to the Age of Discovery, Copernican astronomy, Newtonian law, energy conservation, geological deep time, and evolutionary ascent. Using striking analogies—the Berlin city map to scale the solar system, and a coin’s edge to explain why the Milky Way appears as a bright band—the narrative reviews ideas from Democritus, Dante, Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, Newton, Robert Mayer, Kant, Herschel, Humboldt, Kirchhoff, Bunsen, Draper, and Scheiner. It separates gaseous nebulae within our stellar system from true “island universes” and, via spectroscopy (Fraunhofer lines) and photography, argues that the Andromeda nebula is a distant star system beyond our own, before turning to the pitfalls of perception and the newly fixed shapes of nebulae, leading toward the famous Ring Nebula. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Bölsche, Wilhelm, 1861-1939 |
|---|---|
| Title | Von Sonnen und Sonnenstäubchen : Kosmische Wanderungen |
| Original Publication | Berlin: Georg Bondi, 1906. |
| Contents | Die Rätsel in der Milchstrasse: Aus dem Tagebuche einer Gebirgswanderung -- Die Entstehung der deutschen Landschaft: Träumereien auf einer Eisenbahnfahrt -- Der Kampf um die Haut des Riesenfaultiers: Ein Kapitel aus Wahrheit und Dichtung -- Der erste Vogel -- Die Weltgeschichte des Nilpferdes -- Die Wunderwelt der Radiolarien. Ein Blick in die Tiefsee -- Warum die urweltlichen Tiere ausgestorben sind? -- Vom Leben im Weltraum -- Die Küche der Urzeit -- Das Ende der Tierwelt -- Die Anfänge der Kultur bei den Tieren -- Die Affensprache -- Das Schnabeltier. Vom Säugetier, das Eier legt -- Das Tierleben der Grossstadt -- Kepler's Traum vom Mond -- Dom Krebs, der vom Himmel fällt -- Osterglaube. |
| Credits | The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net |
| Language | German |
| LoC Class | Q: Science |
| Subject | Science |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 76878 |
| Release Date | Sep 15, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 203 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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