btw cassini, I was hoping you’d take a crack at answering my last post to you on the If God both created the Universe and cares about humans, why did he make it so large? thread, you seemed to forget about it. it’s even related to the geocentrism you’re discussing hereA few corrections necessary to previous posts. Copernicus was not a physicist, he was a mathematician. He was not even an astronomer proper but used the measurements of Ptolemy. He was aware of the hermetic heliocentrism rampant at the time and gave it mathematical credence, that is, the maths invilved in the circles etc. While he knew the system was contrary to the Scriptures he gave his book to Protestants to publish. Osiander put a preface to De Rev… that said this saystem was for mathematical purposes only and that only God knows the actual true order. Osiander used the word ‘hypothesis’ but it meant only as a mathematical tool not a statement of truth. Thus the term ‘hypothesis’ was established on this matter forever. He died before he could say differently so was not censured. After the fixed sun was defined as heresy his reputation suffered somewhat until churchmen accepted the heresy as orthodox.
Kepler was a Protestant, deep into hermetic cosmology. He poached all the data from Tycho de Brahe after that great astronomer dies ‘mysteriously’. Kepler guessed, yes guessed, yes guessed, that orbits were ellipses. It was a compromise once de Brahe’s measurements showed orbits were not circles. He had a tragic life of sickness, success, poverty and family tragedy in his life.
Galileo was a physicist yes. He measured curves from balls dropping on boards. He was an asatronomer, just as hundreds were at that time of the invention of the telescope in Holland. He was a Catholic, but as a ‘good’ Catholic, no. He had a mistress, three children out of wedlock with her. He insisted he had proven heliocentrism but the dogs in the street knew he did not. The Bible was the only thing that blocked his way to the ‘greatest discovery ever’. So he went about the business of telling churchmen how they should reinterpret the Bible to his way of thinking. He got deep into exegesis and hermeneutics but came up against one of the greatest theologians who ever lived, Cardinal Bellarmine.
Galileo, according to 1000 books etc., was a perjurer. He swore to God at his trial that he no longer held the heresy but these 1000 accounts say he died a heliocentrist. Thus he died a perjurer because saying something false when taking an oath is perjury. Dakota regurges the usual version used today by Church and State, given they both are Copernican now. He says stellar parallax was proof for Galileo. Well that worked for the propaganda, but any first year physicist student knows today that you cannot get proofs for H because of the phenomenon called relativity. Parallax has two explanations in true physics, a h one and a G one.
So, if a ‘good’ Catholic is one who lived in sin, totally rejected Church teaching, and died a perjurer, then he was a ‘good’ Catholic.
Lemaitre and Schroedinger carried on the work of the other three, consigning the Bible to the rrealm of fairy tales and convinced popes to put the Catholic faith at the mercy of scientific theories.
Going over there now Ronnie.btw cassini, I was hoping you’d take a crack at answering my last post to you on the If God both created the Universe and cares about humans, why did he make it so large? thread, you seemed to forget about it. it’s even related to the geocentrism you’re discussing here
“Finally Kepler found the true orbit sandwiched between an eccentric circle that was too wide and an inscribed ellipse that was too narrow. Both disagreed with observation, the circle by +8´ at some places, the inner ellipse by -8´. He suddenly saw how to compromise half way between the two, and found that gave him an orbit that is an ellipse with the Sun in one focus. He was so delighted with his final proof **PROOF?] **that this would work that he decorated his diagram with a sketch of Victorious Astronomy. At last he knew the true orbit of Mars. A similar rule holds for the Earth and other planets. This is his first law.” — E.M. Rogers: Physics…, p.267.guess - to predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information.
Agreed, it appears Kepler had sufficient observational data about the position of the planets to conclude that his own heliocentric, elliptical model of the solar system more accurately predicted their movements and with less complexity than existing epicycle models.
csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/kepler.html
scientus.org/Gassendi-Transit-Mercury.html
I second this. The relationship between the Church and modern science is far more complex than either side often likes to portray it. To the list of physicists, I’d like to add Pierre Duhem, who wrote before the advent of relativistic physics but whose views were deeply influential on Einstein. He was very active in the French conservative Catholic scene–one of the few non-Marxist scientists operating in that period–and wrote a bit about the intersection of faith and physics.Copernicus was a Catholic priest. Galileo was a Catholic. Gregor Mendel, the founder of the science of genetics, was a Catholic priest. So was LeMaitre, father of the Big Bang theory. Roger Bacon, the great medieval scientist, was also a priest. It really is a scandal, the notion that the Church produced no great advocates of science and stood in perpetual opposition to scientific developments throughout history.
That whole dictionary is up online for free at Encylopedia.com.Dictionary of Scientific Biography
He also corresponded with the great Dominican theologian Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. See the letter “Note on the Value of the Principle of Inertia and Conservation of Energy” that he wrote to Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, which the latter included as an appendix of his book God: His Existence and Nature.I second this. The relationship between the Church and modern science is far more complex than either side often likes to portray it. To the list of physicists, I’d like to add Pierre Duhem, who wrote before the advent of relativistic physics but whose views were deeply influential on Einstein. He was very active in the French conservative Catholic scene–one of the few non-Marxist scientists operating in that period–and wrote a bit about the intersection of faith and physics.
Yes, you can read it here.His “Physics for Believers” is available in English online,
Although many people classify Duhem as a positivist regarding physical theory, precisely because he pointed out the strengths and limits of modern physics, he was certainly not a relativist. He believed that physical theories approach a “natural classification” of physical laws, even if physical theories are not determined by a metaphysics. See his excellent “Physics & Metaphysics” article, which was written in response to a Catholic engineer’s objections to Duhem’s separation (on the side of modern physics) of modern physics from metaphysics.though the physics in it is obviously dated. Ironically, if you read more about his “underdetermination thesis,” you’ll notice that it was co-opted by radical postmodernists as a justification for total relativism.
I never know Schrödinger was Catholic, although this internet source does say he was. entryDictionary of Scientific Biography doesn’t say, though.Lemaitre
Schroedinger
Copernicus
Galilei
Kepler
For an excellent article on him, see his entry in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography.I am much interested in 18th century priest Boscovich who i think first taught us that matter was made up of point like particles in fields of attraction (and at close distances repulsion).
You might like these online books :Hi:
I wonder if I might recommend in this place a rather helpful book called 1000 Years of Catholic Scientists; it is published by Jane Meyerhofer, here:
southwellbooks.com/1000-years-of-catholic-scientists-1669-p.asp
If you want to get into the real details of each scientist’s contribution, you can’t do better than the multivolume Dictionary of Scientific Biography, which is in 26 volumes and is published by Charles Scribner’s under the editorial hand of C.C. Gillipsie. I used this work quite a lot while I was doing scientific research, often to get a historical context of the figures important to the field I was studying. The new edition by Gale is 8 volumes, see here:
amazon.com/New-Dictionary-Scientific-Biography-Vols/dp/0684313200
I actually did a small amount of scholarly research on Medieval science, and I’m surprised that none of the posters have commented (thus far) on the long tradition of Catholic physicists in the Medieval period. Apart from the aforementioned Roger Bacon, we have Jons Scotus Eruigena, astronomer William of Coches, Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II), Hermann the Lame, Adelard, Gerard of Cremona, Johannes de Sacrobosco, Albertus Magnus, Grosseteste, and so many more. And don’t forget all the Medieval “Impetus Theory” Physicists, led by Johannes Buridan. And Nicholas Cusa in astronomy and Oresme in statics and dynamics.
Jacques