22 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science and Poetry are Like Binary Stars
I would liken science and poetry in their natural independence to those binary stars, often different in colour, which Herschel's telescope discovered to revolve round each other. 'There is one light of the sun,' says St. Paul, 'and another of the moon, and another of the stars: star differeth from star in glory.' It is so here. That star or sun, for it is both, with its cold, clear, white light, is SCIENCE: that other, with its gorgeous and ever-shifting hues and magnificent blaze, is POETRY... 1 
notes
notesThey exchange ideas and inspire one another.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
John Keats Recalls a Game of Orbiting Children
The young John Keats remembered an organised game at his school in Enfield, in which all the boys whirled round the playground in a huge choreographed dance, trying to imitate the entire solar system, including all the known moons (to which Herschel had by then added considerably). Unlike Newton’s perfect brassy clockwork mechanism, this schoolboy universe-complete with straying comets — was a gloriously chaotic ‘human orrery’. Keats did not recall the exact details, but one may imagi...
1 Where the children run around mimicking the orbits of the planets and comets, making the solar system seem more chaotic than the classical perspectives.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Herschel Sees Spirituality in Science
To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling … A mind that has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man finding
Tongues in trees — books in the running brooks
Sermons in stones — and good in everything
Where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beau...Folksonomies: philosophy naturalism
Folksonomies: philosophy naturalism
Everything in nature is interesting and significant.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Herschel's Heterodox Opinions
Laplace’s cool confidence in avowing atheistical sentiments was legendary. The story was told that after Napoleon had inspected a copy of Laplace’s Systéme du Monde, he challenged the astronomer about his beliefs. ‘Monsieur Laplace! Newton has frequently spoken of God in his book. I have already gone over yours, and I have not found His name mentioned a single time.’ To this Laplace made the magnificent and disdainful reply: ‘Citizen First Consul, I have no need of that hypothesis.... 1 notes
notesHe believed in aliens living in the Sun, rejected praise for god in his work, but managed to avoid having his library burned down.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Realization That the Universe May End
In a bravura passage, Darwin also considers Herschel’s disturbing suggestion that the entire cosmos may eventually wither back into ‘one dark centre’. This implies that the universe not only had a beginning, but will have a physically destructive end, a ‘Big Crunch’. There are hints here too of Milton’s vision of the falling rebel angels dropping out of the firmament in Book I of Herschel’s favourite, Paradise Lost. This itself had possible political overtones for a reader in th... 1 notes
notesThe historical realization that the Universe might die in a "crunch" was followed by the idea that it might rise again like a phoenix.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Herschel's Sister was Cheaper than a Male Assistant
Herschel made no bones about the fact that a female assistant, even his sister, would cost half as much as a male. It is possible to be indignant about this, but contemporary standards must be taken into account. Female domestic servants were paid £10 per annum, while a highly trained governess like Mary Wollstonecraft was paid £40 per annum by Lord Kingsborough in 1787. In fact a £60 stipend would have been handsome, exactly one-fifth of that paid to the Astronomer Royal. In Europe women ... 1 notes
notesA short survey of other female scientists working at the time.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
John Adams and the Doctrinal Challenge of Extraterrestria...
Sometime in the summer of 1786 the fifty-year-old John Adams, graduate of Harvard University, man of science and future second President of the United States, turned up one morning uninvited at The Grove. He was shown round all Herschel’s new telescopes, and they embarked on an impassioned discussion of the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and the moral implications of there being a ‘plurality of worlds’. This was the sort of metaphysical debate that Herschel had once had with his ... 1 notes
notesIf there is life elsewhere in the Universe, Adams argues with Herschel that it challenges Biblical doctrine.
