Hoyle begins his story with accomplishments of the astronomers of the ancient world - the Babylonians, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans - amd their attempts to measure distance between heavenly bodies and to find order in the bewilding motions of the planets. Hoyle then recreates the richly varied lives and works of Copernicus, Kepler, Brache, and Galileo, showing hoe their work set…