Edmond Halley

“David Love has produced a highly readable account of the remarkably broad contributions of Edmond Halley. Although Halley is most famous for promoting the work of Isaac Newton and using Newton’s law of gravitation to predict the return of the comet named after him, Love capably and authoritatively reviews Halley’s lesser-known but equally significant achievements in navigation, geophysics, and celestial distance measurements. This lively book and its helpful appendices bring to life a much-admired polymath with a gregarious personality.”- Richard Ellis, Professor of Astrophysics, University College London

“Edmond Halley is a well-researched and pacey account of the life and work of the famous seventeenth-century natural philosopher. While best known for his comet and his work with Newton, many other stories are told of this outgoing, likeable man. Love is meticulous in presenting the actual proof (or lack of it) for each, giving the readers the opportunity to decide for themselves, from a wealth of evidence, what type of a man Halley actually might have been.” - Dr. Emily Winterburn, Vice President of the Society for the History of Astronomy and author of The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel: The Last Heroine of Astronomy

David K Love is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society and holds a BSc honors degree from University College London. After a career as an accountant at British Telecom, he took early voluntary retirement to pursue his scientific interests and writing. He is the author of Kepler and the Universe, a biography of the famous 17th century German astronomer Johannes Kepler. He used to lecture frequently on the history of astronomy and on the origins and evolution of the Universe, but now finds that his grandchildren take up this time instead. Love lives in Exeter, in Devon County, England.