Twin Exhibits in Mullins Library Form a Celestial Celebration

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A star chart from "Atlas, Designed to Illustrate the Geography of the Heavens," by Elijah Burritt.

Excited about this morning's Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse? So are the University Libraries! Two new exhibits are now on display in Mullins Library featuring rare books and other materials. While one exhibit focuses on culture, the second is centered on scientific discovery. "The Splendor of the Heavens: Centuries of Changing Perspectives on the Cosmos" — a collective name for both exhibits — will be on display in the Special Collections department through May 2018.

The universe has long inspired and piqued the curiosity of mankind. The rhythms of the Earth and sky provided the basis for calendars; the moon predicted tides. The prospective connections between the distant celestial bodies and people's lives were as infinite as scientists believe the universe to be.

The materials in these exhibits, curated by Stephanie Pierce, Joshua Youngblood and Catherine Wallack, illustrate humanity's evolving understanding of the universe. Cosmology, physics, mathematics, astrology, religion and astronomy are all intertwined in the complex history of how we think about the solar system. Since the beginning of written language, people have used books to record their speculations, calculations and beliefs about the meaning and import of what they observed. While some of those beliefs have now been proven false, other documents became the stepping-stones for the great thinkers that followed.

Authors featured in these exhibits include Euclid, the Father of Geometry; Albert Einstein, whose theory of relativity is a pillar of modern Physics; and Steven Hawking, a world-renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist who built upon Einstein's work in relativity by joining it with quantum mechanics to theorize how the universe came to be.

Also included in the exhibits are a three-volume set of Vitruvius from 1807, The Starry Messenger by William Lily from 1644, The Celestial Symbol Interpreted by Herbert W. Morris from 1883, and Semeiotica Uranica by Nicholas Culpeper from 1671.

"I am thrilled to work with our Special Collections department to help showcase some of the unique and rare materials University Libraries has in the realms of physical sciences, mathematics, and space science," said Pierce. "It's my hope that people will come and see the various ways humankind has interpreted our surroundings, both humanistically and scientifically, to explains our universe's existence."