The 19th century saw the culmination of what we now call Classical physics and the high water mark of the mechanistic view of the universe. Clergy remained important contributors of science, even as the field (now called, for the first time, “science”) was becoming a viable way for laypeople to make a living. Two giants of this era were Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics (and a priest), and Angelo Secchi, the father of astrophysics (and also a priest).
A brief portion of an Easter sermon by Gregor Mendel
- Article (PDF)
- 1 page
- General audiences
Gregor Mendel, who served as the Abbot of the Augustinian monastery in Brno in what is now the Czech Republic, is recognized today as the founder of the modern science of genetics, on account of of his experiments with the breeding of plants. This is a brief portion of an Easter sermon by Mendel (from notes written in his own hand) that makes reference to gardening and plants.
[Download PDF]Mendel-Easter-Sermon-JHG
Accuracy of Solar Eclipse Observations Made by Jesuit Astronomers in China
- Article
- 10 pages
- University specialist level
A 1995 Journal for the History of Astronomy article by F. R. Stephenson and L. J. Fatoohi:
Abstract: During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jesuit astronomers at the Chinese court in Beijing observed many eclipses of the Sun and Moon. For most of these events the times of beginning, middle and end were measured and the magnitudes estimated. Summaries of virtually all of the observation made between A.D. 1644 and 1785 are still preserved. In this paper, that various solar eclipse measurements that the Jesuits made during the period are compared with computation based on modern solar and lunar ephemerides.
Click here to access this article via NASA ADS.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from NASA ADS.
Agnes Mary Clerke
Articles (several) Various page lengths General audiences Agnes Mary Clerke was an influential nineteenth-century writer whose primary subject of interest was astronomy. Below is the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for her (1913), followed by links to other articles about her. Agnes Mary Clerke Astronomer, born at Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland, 10 February, 1842; died in London, 20 January 1907. At the very beginning of her study she showed a marked interest in astronomy, and before she was fifteen years old she had begun to write a history of that science. In 1861 the family moved to Dublin, and in 1863 to Queenstown. Several years later she went to Italy where she stayed until 1877, chiefly at Florence, studying at the public library and preparing for literary work. In 1877 she settled in London. Her first important article, “Copernicus in Italy”, was published in the “Edinburgh Review” (October, 1877). She achieved a world-wide reputation in 1885, on the appearance of her exhaustive … Continue reading →
André-Marie Ampère on evidence from Science for the Existence of God
- Article (excerpt)
- 150 words (French and English)
- General audiences
André-Marie Ampère was a French physicist and mathematician who did much work in the field of electricity. The unit of electrical current, the Amp is named for him.
Click here for the text of Ampère’s statement and a discussion of Ampère, from Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science, courtesy of Google Books.
Click here for the original text, from Ampere’s Essai sur la Philosophie des Sciences of 1843.
André-Marie Ampère: Enlightenment and Electrodynamics
Book- 406 pages
- University level
This 1995 biography of André-Marie Ampère is written by James R. Hofmann and published by Cambridge University Press. Ampère conducted pioneering studies of electricity, among other things (the unit of electrical current, the “Ampere” or “Amp” is named in his honor). This biography treats his scientific work in considerable detail. Ampère was Catholic, and he both valued his faith and also struggled with it at times. From a journal entry by Ampère after his final conversion (or reversion) to Catholicism:
God has revealed to me what my eternal salvation depends upon. Could I ever forget it? Great Saint Joseph, to whose intercession above all I owe this grace, Saint Mary, mother of God, whose name I received at my baptism and to whom I also have this inexpressible gift, always intercede before God that he may conserve it for me and that I might make myself worthy of it!
From the publisher:
In this authoritative biography, James Hofmann examines the extraordinary life of André-Marie Ampère, who made original, significant contributions to mathematics and chemistry and is renowned for his new branch of physics – electrodynamics. A member of the Académie des Sciences, and professor at the École Polytechnique, his accomplishments are remarkable in view of his tragic personal life. One of the elite of early nineteenth-century Parisian science, yet having no formal education, he embraced the scientific optimism of the Enlightenment, and the Catholic faith. This combination of intellectual expectation and emotional spirituality made Ampère’s genius both destructive and extraordinarily creative. This, the only biography available in the English language, illuminates the scientific contributions of an individual and his epoch, and provides a fascinating insight into the workings of the scientific mind.
Click here for more information from the publisher, Cambridge University Press.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
Angelo Secchi: L’avventura scientifica del Collegio Romano
In Italian. A source book concerning Fr. Angelo Secchi and the history of science pursued at the Roman College
Continue reading →Astronomy on the Frontier
Article (blog post)- 1200 words
- General audiences
Christopher Graney writes on The Catholic Astronomer blog about the first bishop of Vincennes, Indiana, Simon Guillaume Gabriel Bruté de Rémur (1779-1839), and his library. The library contained a significant collection of works on science, which Bishop Bruté hauled all the way to the American frontier from France. Graney writes:
It turns out Bruté had been a top-notch student of science—one of the best students in his class at the medical school in Paris. So of course his library would include quite a bit of material on a variety of sciences, including astronomy. Still, Indiana was being settled at the time, and was pretty rough country: the land of Abraham Lincoln’s youth…; a land that had only become a state twenty years earlier; a land from which the Potowatami Indians were being forcibly evicted while Bruté was bishop, passing only a hundred miles to the north on a “Trail of Death.” Was it really worth the trouble and cost to haul crates of science books to this country, all for a church library? especially for a guy who apparently owned so little other stuff of worth that a decent set of clothes had to be borrowed for his burial! Obviously, in the opinion of the first bishop of Vincennes, it was indeed worth it (and worth it to have some up-to-date astronomy books, too)…. It is worth knowing that Bishop Simon Guillaume Gabriel Bruté de Rémur cared about having science books, including astronomy books, in the rough-and-tumble country of 1830’s Indiana. In the U.S.A., at least, we tend to value a little more those things our forebears valued.
Book: The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy
Book- 380 pages
- High school students and above
As suggested by our research team. This description is from the publisher:
Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences, and one which has repeatedly led to fundamental changes in our view of the world. This book covers the history of our study of the cosmos from prehistory through to a survey of modern astronomy and astrophysics (sure to be of interest to future historians of twentieth-century astronomy). It does not attempt to cover everything, but deliberately concentrates on the important themes and topics. These include stellar astronomy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at the time subordinate to the study of the solar system, but the source of many important concepts in modern astronomy, and the Copernican revolution, which led to the challenge of ancient authorities in many areas, not just astronomy. This is an essential text for students of the history of science and for students of astronomy who require a historical background to their studies.
Click here for Table of Contents from Cambridge University Press.
Click here for an excerpt from Cambridge University Press.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
André-Marie Ampère on evidence from Science for the Existence of God
- Article (excerpt)
- 150 words (French and English)
- General audiences
André-Marie Ampère was a French physicist and mathematician who did much work in the field of electricity. The unit of electrical current, the Amp is named for him.
Click here for the text of Ampère’s statement and a discussion of Ampère, from Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science, courtesy of Google Books.
Click here for the original text, from Ampere’s Essai sur la Philosophie des Sciences of 1843.
Fr. Giuseppe Lais, Astronomer
- Article
- 800 words
- General Audiences (Italian)
Fr. Sabino Maffeo, a physicist with the Vatican Observatory since 1985, writes about Fr. Giuseppe Lais, who worked with Angelo Secchi and the early Vatican Observatory.
Click here for the full text of this article, which was published in the Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Vol. 63 (2004), p. 93-94.
Oratorian Father Giuseppe Lais (1845-1921), was the astronomer who did most of the photography for a collaborative project the Vatican participated in from 1894 into the 1950s to create a photographic map of the heavens and to catalogue the stars. Father Lais is pictured in this undated photo using the Carte du Ciel (Celestial Map) telescope in the Leonine Tower at the Vatican. (CNS photo/courtesy Vatican Observatory). See CNS: “Mapping with the stars“, 4/28/2016.
Searching the Heavens and the Earth: The History of Jesuit Observatories [with book reviews]
Book- 369 pages
- University level
Searching the Heavens and the Earth: The History of Jesuit Observatories, is a 2003 book by Agustín Udías, S. J. of the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Universidad Complutenese (Madrid, Spain). From the publisher:
Jesuits established a large number of astronomical, geophysical and meteorological observatories during the 17th and 18th centuries and again during the 19th and 20th centuries throughout the world. The history of these observatories has never been published in a complete form. Many early European astronomical observatories were established in Jesuit colleges.
During the 17th and 18th centuries Jesuits were the first western scientists to enter into contact with China and India. It was through them that western astronomy was first introduced in these countries. They made early astronomical observations in India and China and they directed for 150 years the Imperial Observatory of Beijing.
In the 19th and 20th centuries a new set of observatories were established. Besides astronomy these now included meteorology and geophysics. Jesuits established some of the earliest observatories in Africa, South America and the Far East.
Jesuit observatories constitute an often forgotten chapter of the history of these sciences.
Click here for more information, including a brief preview, from the publisher (Springer).
Click here for a substantial preview from Google Books.
Below are two reviews of this book by astronomers with the Vatican Observatory:
- Book review by Fr. Sabinao Maffeo, S. J., in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, 2005 (PDF, courtesy of NASA ADS).
- Book review by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., in the Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 2007 (PDF).
The Vatican Observatory (Popular Astronomy, 1903)
- Article
- 5 pages
- General audiences
This 1903 article in the magazine Popular Astronomy describes the Vatican Observatory after it had been re-established by Pope Leo XIII. Some photos are included in the article. The author, W. Alfred Parr, writes:
When towards the middle of the ninth century Pope Leo IV sought to stem the further ravages of the Saracen hordes by strengthening the defences of Rome and enclosing the Vatican hill with massive turreted walls, he could little imagine that these same walls, designed so well to bear the engines of war that were to dominate the country round, would, more than a thousand years later, be required by a successor and namesake to harbor a weapon of science of a potency little dreamt of in those days—a weapon whose range of power should penetrate to the confines of the unknown itself. For, after the conclusion of the International Photographic Conference on the charting of the heavens, held in Paris in 1889, it was on one of the strongest of the towers forming part of the ancient Leonine wall that the late Pontiff, Leo XIII, decided to erect the newly-ordered astrographic telescope which was to enable the Vatican Observatory, until that time somewhat meagrely equipped, to worthily enter the lists with the seventeen other observatories to whom the work of the chart had been allotted.
Click here to access this article via Google Books.
Jesuit Science
- Article and Video
- 750 words (article), 1 hour (video)
- General audiences
Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, discusses Jesuits and their many contributions to science in an article and in a talk (on video). Br. Consolmagno notes:
A Jesuit scientist, supported by the order, is often not tied to a three-year funding cycle or six-year tenure review. Thus we have the time – it may take decades – to catalogue double stars, seismic velocities, or patterns in climate or terrestrial magnetic fields. Jesuits, for instance, invented the basic taxonomy of the plants of India. But this sort of science often meant that their work was unappreciated by their immediate peers. Famously in the 19th century the Whig historian and politician Thomas Macaulay sneered that the Jesuits “appear to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation” and that being a Jesuit “has a tendency to suffocate, rather than to develop, original genius.”
The Jesuit Contribution to Seismology
Map showing locations of Jesuit seismographic stations.
- Article
- 4000 words
- University level
This 1996 article by Agustin Udías of Universidad Complutense (Madrid, Spain) and William Stauder, Saint Louis University was published in Seismological Research Letters. Udías and Staude write:
The contribution to seismology of the Society of Jesus as an institution through its colleges and universities, and its members as individual scientists, forms an important chapter in the history of this science. This is especially so in the early years of its development…. No recent or comprehensive work, however, exists on the topic. Recently, moreover, many Jesuit seismographic stations have been closed and the number of Jesuits actually working in seismology has been greatly reduced. To a certain extent, apart from a very few academic departments and research institutes associated with Jesuit universities, it can be said that this is a chapter which is coming to a close. The interest of Jesuits has moved in other directions and it is not likely that seismology will become again an important aspect of the work of individual Jesuits as it was in the past. For this reason we feel that it will be of interest to present an overall picture of the extent of the Jesuit involvement in seismology.
Click here to access this article via the Seismological Society of America.
This article was also published as a chapter of the book International Handbook of Earthquake & Engineering Seismology, Part 1. Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
The Vatican Observatory (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1901)
Article (encyclopedia entry)- 2 pages
- General audiences
The entry for the Vatican Observatory in the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia. The entry was written by J. G. Hagen, S. J., director of the Observatory at that time. From the article:
The Vatican Observatory now bears the official title, “Specola Astronomica Vaticana”. To understand its history it is necessary to remark that the designations osservatorio or specola are not restricted to astronomy, but may mean any elevated locality from which aerial phenomena are observed. From this point of view the history of the Specola Vaticana has passed through four successive stages….
Click here to access this article via Google Books.
The Total Solar Eclipse of July 29th, 1878
Article- 13 pages
- High school level and above
This article by J. M. Degni, S. J. from the 1878 American Catholic Quarterly Review provides an interesting look at a scientific article in a nineteenth-century Catholic periodical. “The Total Solar Eclipse” follows articles on the position of the Blessed Virgin in Catholic theology, Sir Thomas More, Catholic poetry, and Pope Sixtus V, among others. It features significant discussion of topics in astronomy such as spectroscopy and the work of Fr. Angelo Secchi. It also features a table of numerical data on temperature and humidity during the eclipse, and a full-page sketch of the eclipse made by Fr. Benedict Sestini. This sketch is also on the cover of the magazine. Degni concludes, “Many minor details, revealed by the spectroscope, the polariscope, and other instruments of observation, we must omit for brevity’s sake…. we must patiently await the full examination and comparison of the various observations taken on the 29th before the truth can be reached on this and many other points open to discussion. Meanwhile, we confidently assert that the observations made on the late eclipse will be found to have materially augmented our knowledge regarding the central orb of the solar system.”
Click here for the article, courtesy of Google Books.
Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics
Book, web site, video- 176 pages (book), 3 minutes (video)
- High school level and above
Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian friar who founded the science of genetics. This book by Simon Mawer discusses Mendel’s life, life at his abbey, and the science and history of genetics. It was produced in association with the Field Museum in Chicago, which had an exhibit by the same name in 2006-2007. The web site associated with the book and exhibit is still available, as is a video from the Field Museum. (A Faith and Science entry for a related book on Mendel written for younger people is also available—click here).
Click here for a Google Books entry for Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics. From the Google entry:
Considered one of the greatest scientists in history, Gregor Mendel was the first person to map the characteristics of a living things successive generations, thus forming the foundation of modern genetic science. In Gregor Mendel, distinguished novelist and biologist Simon Mawer outlines Mendel’s groundbreaking research and traces his intellectual legacy from his discoveries in the mid-19th century to the present.
In an engaging narrative enhanced by beautiful illustrations, Mawer details Mendels life and work, from his experimentation with garden peas through his subsequent findings about heredity and genetic traits. Mawer also highlights the scientific work built on Mendels breakthroughs, including the discovery of the DNA molecule by scientists Watson and Crick in the 1950s, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, and the advances in genetics that continue today.
Click here for the Field Museum website for the Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics exhibit. From the website:
In an abbey garden, Mendel planted the seeds for the science of heredity.
Born to poor tenant farmers in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Gregor Mendel joined the Abbey of St. Thomas in 1843, at age 21. The Abbey was a dream come true for a budding scientist. A vibrant center of research, its friars were active in the sciences, linguistics, literature and philosophy. The Abbey made it possible for Mendel to attend the University of Vienna and to read widely in a library that contained 30,000 books.
Mendel had diverse interests—astronomy, meteorology, physics, botany, and mathematics. He was one of the first scientists to use rigorous experiments and mathematical analysis as a means to study biology.
In 1856, Mendel launched an ambitious series of experiments with Pisum sativum—the garden pea. Eight years and approximately 28,000 pea plants later, Mendel published the results of his grand experiment. His methods were so advanced and his results so groundbreaking that no one realized how his discovery would eventually revolutionize science.
After being elected Abbot in 1868, Mendel had little time for science. He may have been disheartened by the lack of reaction to his pea paper, but he knew that his discovery was important. Not long before his death in 1884 he told a scientific colleague, “My time will come.”
Mendel was right. In 1900 three European botanists rediscovered his work and set off a scientific explosion. The field of genetics was born and Mendel is considered its founding father.
Click here for a Field Museum video for Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics.
Jesuit Science
- Article and Video
- 750 words (article), 1 hour (video)
- General audiences
Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, discusses Jesuits and their many contributions to science in an article and in a talk (on video). Br. Consolmagno notes:
A Jesuit scientist, supported by the order, is often not tied to a three-year funding cycle or six-year tenure review. Thus we have the time – it may take decades – to catalogue double stars, seismic velocities, or patterns in climate or terrestrial magnetic fields. Jesuits, for instance, invented the basic taxonomy of the plants of India. But this sort of science often meant that their work was unappreciated by their immediate peers. Famously in the 19th century the Whig historian and politician Thomas Macaulay sneered that the Jesuits “appear to have discovered the precise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual emancipation” and that being a Jesuit “has a tendency to suffocate, rather than to develop, original genius.”
Giuseppe Settele and the final annulment of the decree of 1616 against Copernicanism
Pope Pius VII
- Article (PDF)
- 3500 words
- University level and above
In 1820 Fr. Giuseppe Settele requested an imprimatur on his book Elementi di ottica e di astronomia (Elements of Optics and Astronomy), which referenced Earth’s motion. The request was denied; Settele appealed to Pope Pius VII. This article by Fr. Juan Casanovas, an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, provides a brief historical background on and summary of the actions surrounding this event. Casanovas writes:
It is a merit of Settele that he insisted on obtaining the imprimatur. If he had just rewritten his textbook to say: supposing or in the case the earth moves around the sun… there would have been no difficulty. However he insisted and his insistence earned freedom for all subsequent writers of astronomy. Settele didn’t give in to the requests of the Pope’s palace “maggiordomo”.
[Download PDF]
Casanovas-Settele
A brief portion of an Easter sermon by Gregor Mendel
- Article (PDF)
- 1 page
- General audiences
Gregor Mendel, who served as the Abbot of the Augustinian monastery in Brno in what is now the Czech Republic, is recognized today as the founder of the modern science of genetics, on account of of his experiments with the breeding of plants. This is a brief portion of an Easter sermon by Mendel (from notes written in his own hand) that makes reference to gardening and plants.
[Download PDF]Mendel-Easter-Sermon-JHG
Stars And The Milky Way
Book chapter (PDF)- 8 pages
- High school level and above
A chapter by Fr. Christopher Corbally, S.J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, for the book The Heavens Proclaim: Astronomy and the Vatican. Fr. Corbally writes “the really interesting details contained within a [spectrum] are revealed when light from a star is focused onto a narrow slit, which from there passes through a prism, and then gets focused again onto your eye or a camera.” Topics include ‘A History of Stellar Spectra’; ‘Spectra and Brightness’; ‘Classifying Stars’; ‘Getting to Know Our Neighbors’; and ‘The Simple Picture Gives Way to Surprises’.
[Download PDF]
Stars-and-the-Milky-Way
Statement regarding faith, by Alessandro Volta to Giacomo Ciceri
- Article (letter)
- 350 words (Italian and English)
- General audiences
Alessandro Volta made a number of contributions to science, but he is perhaps best known as the inventor of the Voltaic pile, that is, the electrical battery. Batteries, which produce electrical energy from chemical energy, are a key part of electrical technology. The electrical unit of the Volt (as in a 12 Volt battery) is named for him.
Click here for the text of Volta’s statement and a discussion of it, from Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science, courtesy of Google Books.
André-Marie Ampère on evidence from Science for the Existence of God
- Article (excerpt)
- 150 words (French and English)
- General audiences
André-Marie Ampère was a French physicist and mathematician who did much work in the field of electricity. The unit of electrical current, the Amp is named for him.
Click here for the text of Ampère’s statement and a discussion of Ampère, from Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science, courtesy of Google Books.
Click here for the original text, from Ampere’s Essai sur la Philosophie des Sciences of 1843.
Tradition and Today: Religion and Science
- Article (PDF)
- 12 pages
- University and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, presents four case histories which indicate that the relationship between religion and science has, in the course of three centuries, passed from one of conflict to one of compatible openness and dialogue, to show that the natural sciences have played a significant role in helping to establish the kind of dialogue that is absolutely necessary for the enrichment of the multifaceted aspects of human culture, whether traditional or modern. He argues that the approach of science to religion in each of these periods can be characterized respectively as: (l) temptress, (2) antagonist, (3) enlightened teacher, (4) partner in dialogue.
[Download PDF]
Sci-Rel_4_epochs
James Clerk Maxwell – A Student’s Evening Hymn
Article (poem, PDF)- 460 words
- All audiences
James Clerk Maxwell is one of the most important figures in the history of science. Students in physics courses everywhere study “Maxwell’s Equations” that mathematically describe electromagnetic waves. These waves include light, radio, x-rays, etc. They are how astronomers learn about the universe and they are the basis of all wireless communication technology, including smart phones. Maxwell was a devout Christian, and a poet. Here we see both his interest in science and his faith reflected in one of his poems.
Elizabeth Blackwell: First Woman Physician
Book- 112 pages
- General audiences
This book on Elizabeth Blackwell was written by Tristan Boyer Binns and published by Scholastic in 2005. From the jacket cover:
At a time when only men were supposed to become doctors, Elizabeth Blackwell earned a medical degree in 1849 from Geneva Medical College in New York. She was the first woman in the United States to ever earn such a degree. After graduating, she struggled to find ways to expand her medical knowledge. She traveled to France to study at La Maternite hospital in Paris. A serious eye infection forced Blackwell to lose her left eye and ended her dreams of becoming a surgeon. In 1853, she founded a free dispensary in New York City, the first of her many efforts to help provide women and children with better health care. Throughout her career, she fought tirelessly to help other women gain opportunities in medicine.
This book is written for school-age readers, but it does unflinchingly discuss health problems in the nineteenth century, including Blackwell’s eye infection, contagious diseases, problems related to sexual health and disease, and so forth.
Michael Faraday – Physics and Faith
Book- 128 pages
- General audiences (middle school and up)
This book by Colin Russel is part of the Oxford Portraits in Science series for young adults. The general editor of this series is Owen Gingerich, a historian of science with Harvard University, and an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It discusses the life and work of Michael Faraday, one of the more prominent physicists in the history of science. As the book’s title suggests, Faraday was a religious man.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
From the publisher, Oxford University Press:
Michael Faraday (1791-1867), the son of a blacksmith, described his education as “little more than the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at a common day-school.” Yet from such basics, he became one of the most prolific and wide-ranging experimental scientists who ever lived. As a bookbinder’s apprentice with a voracious appetite for learning, he read every book he got his hands on. In 1812 he attended a series of chemistry lectures by Sir Humphry Davy at London’s prestigious Royal Institution. He took copious and careful notes, and, in the hopes of landing a scientific job, bound them and sent them to the lecturer. Davy was impressed enough to hire the 21-year-old as a laboratory assistant.
In his first decade at the Institution, Faraday discovered benzene, isobutylene, and two chlorides of carbon. But despite these and other accomplishments in chemistry, he is chiefly remembered for his work in physics. In 1831 he proved that magnetism could generate an electric current, thereby establishing the field of electromagnetism and leading to the invention of the dynamo. In addition to his extraordinary scientific activities, Faraday was a leader in his church, whose faith and wish to serve guided him throughout his career. An engaging public speaker, he gave popular lectures on scientific subjects, and helped found a tradition of scientific education for children and laypeople that continues to this day.
Oxford Portraits in Science is an ongoing series of scientific biographies for young adults. Written by top scholars and writers, each biography examines the personality of its subject as well as the thought process leading to his or her discoveries. These illustrated biographies combine accessible technical information with compelling personal stories to portray the scientists whose work has shaped our understanding of the natural world.
Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas
Book- 32 pages
- General audiences (early grade school)
This colorful book by Cheryl Bardoe was produced in partnership with the Field Museum in Chicago. It tells about the life of Gregor Mendel and about his work. The book provides a fairly detailed discussion of both his life as a monk and of his experiments, even though it is only 32 pages long and is a “picture book”. (A Faith and Science entry for a related book on Mendel written for a more advanced audience is also available—click here).
Click here to download a brief excerpt.
From the publisher, Abrams Books:
The only picture book available about the father of genetics and his pea plants!
How do mothers and fathers—whether they are apple trees, sheep, or humans—pass down traits to their children? This question fascinated Gregor Mendel throughout his life. Regarded as the world’s first geneticist, Mendel overcame poverty and obscurity to discover one of the fundamental aspects of genetic science: animals, plants, and people all inherit and pass down traits through the same process, following the same rules.
Living the slow-paced, contemplative life of a friar, Gregor Mendel was able to conceive and put into practice his great experiment: growing multiple generations of peas. From observing yellow peas, green peas, smooth peas, and wrinkled peas, Mendel crafted his theory of heredity—years before scientists had any notion of genes.
Children will be inspired by Gregor’s neverending search for knowledge, and his famous experiments are easy to understand as an introduction to genetics.
F&P level: Q [Lexile level: AD1030L (click here)]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cheryl Bardoe is Senior Project Manager of Exhibitions at the Field Museum of Chicago. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Jos. A. Smith s the well-known illustrator of numerous books for children. He is a professor of fine arts at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, where he has taught drawing, painting, and figure sculpture. Smith has illustrated for a number of magazines, including Time and Newsweek. His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States. He lives near Westchester, New York.
Gregor Mendel explains to children the theory of heredity in simple-to-understand language and examples. Regarded as the world’s first geneticist, Gregor Mendel discovered one of the fundamental aspects of genetic science: animals, plants, and people all inherit and pass down traits through the same process. Living the slow-paced, contemplative life of a friar, Gregor Mendel was able to conceive and put into practice his great experiment—observing yellow peas, green peas, smooth peas, and wrinkled peas to craft his theory—years before scientists had any notion of genes. Includes an author’s note and bibliography.
Awards for Gregor Mendel
Orbis Pictus Honor Book
ALA-ALSC Notable Book
IRA Notable Book
AAAS/Subaru SB&F Excellence in Science Book Finalist
Gregor Mendel and the Roots of Genetics
Book- 109 pages
- General audiences (middle school and up)
This book by Edward Edelson is part of the Oxford Portraits in Science series for young adults. The general editor of this series is Owen Gingerich, a historian of science with Harvard University, and an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This book discusses the work and life of Gregor Mendel, who is recognized today as being the founder of the modern science of genetics. Mendel was a monk and later abbot of the Augustinian monastery at Brno in the Czech Republic. Edelson writes:
[In] an Easter sermon. Mendel took special note of the way that Christ appeared to Mary Magdalen when he rose after his crucifixion: as a gardener. He wrote that “the gardener plants seed or seedlings in prepared soil. The soil must exert a physical and chemical influence so that the seed of the plant can grow. Yet this is not sufficient. The warmth and light of the sun must be added, together with rain, in order that growth may result.” Mendel used this image from the world of nature to illustrate how “the germ of supernatural life, sanctifying grace, is put into the soul of man.” So even as a priest, Mendel referred to his work with plants.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
From the publisher, Oxford University Press:
When Gregor Mendel passed away in 1884, not a single scholar recognized his epochal contributions to biology. The unassuming abbot of the Augustinian monastery in Brno (in today’s Czech Republic) was rediscovered at the turn of the century when scientists were stunned to learn that their findings about inheritance had already been made by an unknown monk three decades earlier. A dedicated researcher who spent every spare hour in the study of the natural sciences, Mendel devised a series of brilliantly simple experiments using a plant easily grown on the monastery’s grounds–the garden pea. In the course of just a few years he made the famous discoveries that later became the centerpiece of the science of heredity. In an entertaining and thoroughly informed narrative, Edward Edelson traces Mendel’s life from his humble origins to his posthumous fame, giving us both a brief introduction to the fascinating science of genetics and an inspired account of what a modest man can accomplish with dedication and ingenuity.
Oxford Portraits in Science is an ongoing series of scientific biographies for young adults. Written by top scholars and writers, each biography examines the personality of its subject as well as the thought process leading to his or her discoveries. These illustrated biographies combine accessible technical information with compelling personal stories to portray the scientists whose work has shaped our understanding of the natural world.
André-Marie Ampère: Enlightenment and Electrodynamics
- Book
- 406 pages
- University level
This 1995 biography of André-Marie Ampère is written by James R. Hofmann and published by Cambridge University Press. Ampère conducted pioneering studies of electricity, among other things (the unit of electrical current, the “Ampere” or “Amp” is named in his honor). This biography treats his scientific work in considerable detail. Ampère was Catholic, and he both valued his faith and also struggled with it at times. From a journal entry by Ampère after his final conversion (or reversion) to Catholicism:
God has revealed to me what my eternal salvation depends upon. Could I ever forget it? Great Saint Joseph, to whose intercession above all I owe this grace, Saint Mary, mother of God, whose name I received at my baptism and to whom I also have this inexpressible gift, always intercede before God that he may conserve it for me and that I might make myself worthy of it!
From the publisher:
In this authoritative biography, James Hofmann examines the extraordinary life of André-Marie Ampère, who made original, significant contributions to mathematics and chemistry and is renowned for his new branch of physics – electrodynamics. A member of the Académie des Sciences, and professor at the École Polytechnique, his accomplishments are remarkable in view of his tragic personal life. One of the elite of early nineteenth-century Parisian science, yet having no formal education, he embraced the scientific optimism of the Enlightenment, and the Catholic faith. This combination of intellectual expectation and emotional spirituality made Ampère’s genius both destructive and extraordinarily creative. This, the only biography available in the English language, illuminates the scientific contributions of an individual and his epoch, and provides a fascinating insight into the workings of the scientific mind.
Click here for more information from the publisher, Cambridge University Press.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
Angelo Secchi: L’avventura scientifica del Collegio Romano
In Italian. A source book concerning Fr. Angelo Secchi and the history of science pursued at the Roman College
Continue reading →Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics
- Book, web site, video
- 176 pages (book), 3 minutes (video)
- High school level and above
Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian friar who founded the science of genetics. This book by Simon Mawer discusses Mendel’s life, life at his abbey, and the science and history of genetics. It was produced in association with the Field Museum in Chicago, which had an exhibit by the same name in 2006-2007. The web site associated with the book and exhibit is still available, as is a video from the Field Museum. (A Faith and Science entry for a related book on Mendel written for younger people is also available—click here).
Click here for a Google Books entry for Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics. From the Google entry:
Considered one of the greatest scientists in history, Gregor Mendel was the first person to map the characteristics of a living things successive generations, thus forming the foundation of modern genetic science. In Gregor Mendel, distinguished novelist and biologist Simon Mawer outlines Mendel’s groundbreaking research and traces his intellectual legacy from his discoveries in the mid-19th century to the present.
In an engaging narrative enhanced by beautiful illustrations, Mawer details Mendels life and work, from his experimentation with garden peas through his subsequent findings about heredity and genetic traits. Mawer also highlights the scientific work built on Mendels breakthroughs, including the discovery of the DNA molecule by scientists Watson and Crick in the 1950s, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, and the advances in genetics that continue today.
Click here for the Field Museum website for the Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics exhibit. From the website:
In an abbey garden, Mendel planted the seeds for the science of heredity.
Born to poor tenant farmers in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Gregor Mendel joined the Abbey of St. Thomas in 1843, at age 21. The Abbey was a dream come true for a budding scientist. A vibrant center of research, its friars were active in the sciences, linguistics, literature and philosophy. The Abbey made it possible for Mendel to attend the University of Vienna and to read widely in a library that contained 30,000 books.
Mendel had diverse interests—astronomy, meteorology, physics, botany, and mathematics. He was one of the first scientists to use rigorous experiments and mathematical analysis as a means to study biology.
In 1856, Mendel launched an ambitious series of experiments with Pisum sativum—the garden pea. Eight years and approximately 28,000 pea plants later, Mendel published the results of his grand experiment. His methods were so advanced and his results so groundbreaking that no one realized how his discovery would eventually revolutionize science.
After being elected Abbot in 1868, Mendel had little time for science. He may have been disheartened by the lack of reaction to his pea paper, but he knew that his discovery was important. Not long before his death in 1884 he told a scientific colleague, “My time will come.”
Mendel was right. In 1900 three European botanists rediscovered his work and set off a scientific explosion. The field of genetics was born and Mendel is considered its founding father.
Click here for a Field Museum video for Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics.
Nove papi, una missione: Cento anni della Specola Vaticana.
Book- General Audience (Italian)
Nove papi, una missione: Cento anni della Specola Vaticana, by Fr. Sabino Maffeo, a physicist with the Vatican Observatory since 1985, was published in 1991, on the occassion of the 100th anniversary of the Vatican Observatory. It is also available in English translation as In the Service of Nine Popes.
Click here for libraries that carry this book.