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ⓜ Diary for February 25, 2019

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This entry is part 32 of 44 in the series Diary

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Back home in Tucson (and about to leave for another trip!)...

The usual daily task is answering emails. But my emails tend to lead me down interesting rabbit holes: Giordano Bruno (I got two questions about him this week), what it's like to attend a science fiction convention, and updates on book chapters both newly published and overdue...

Two emails about book chapters, in fact:

On behalf of Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. and Graham Oppy, I am pleased to announce the publication of Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophyin both print and as an eBook. Citation information for the title is as follows: Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. and Graham Oppy, eds. Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2019. I finally got to read the atheists' arguments based on science. Um... I'm not convinced.

At the same time I got another email reminding me that back in 2017 I had promised a chapter for a book about the science at the Vatican Observatory, due at that fabulously mythical date of February 2019. Urp!

Meanwhile, you may recall, in my last diary, that I gave my schedule for the Boskone Science Fiction Convention held earlier this month in Boston. A friend from Europe wrote, asking if these were just giant nerd-fests...
 
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Br. Guy Consolmagno

About Br. Guy Consolmagno

Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ is Director of the the Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he earned undergraduate and masters' degrees from MIT, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona; he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps (Kenya), and taught university physics at Lafayette College before entering the Jesuits in 1989.

At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, his research explores connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies, observing Kuiper Belt comets with the Vatican's 1.8 meter telescope in Arizona, and applying his measure of meteorite physical properties to understanding asteroid origins and structure. Along with more than 200 scientific publications, he is the author of a number of popular books including Turn Left at Orion (with Dan Davis), and most recently Would You Baptize an Extraterrestial? (with Father Paul Mueller, SJ). He also has hosted science programs for BBC Radio 4, been interviewed in numerous documentary films, appeared on The Colbert Report, and for more than ten years he has written a monthly science column for the British Catholic magazine, The Tablet.

Dr. Consolmagno's work has taken him to every continent on Earth; for example, in 1996 he spent six weeks collecting meteorites with a NASA team on the blue ice regions of East Antarctica. He has served on the governing boards of the Meteoritical Society; the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences (of which he was chair in 2006-2007); and IAU Commission 16 (Planets and Satellites). In 2000, the small bodies nomenclature committee of the IAU named an asteroid, 4597 Consolmagno, in recognition of his work. In 2014 he received the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences for excellence in public communication in planetary sciences.

Orbit of Asteroid 4597 Consolmagno

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Comments

ⓜ Diary for February 25, 2019 — 2 Comments

  1. Fr. Stanley Jaki wrote a booklet on “Bruno: A Martyr of Science?” or something like that. As I recall, he argued, that Bruno was more magician than scientist. He also wrote an Intro to a translation of Bruno’s “Ash Wednesday Supper,” in which relied heavily on Frances Yates’s 1964 biography of Bruno to drive home the point that Bruno was burned – not for his acceptance of Copernicanism – but for his devotion to the “dark arts.” Not sure the reason mattered that much to old Giordano, but . . .

    • Bruno is not my area of expertise, but I have read works from that time as part of my research, and my experience is along the same line as Br. Guy’s: I have not encountered a lot of talk about Bruno. Where I have encountered talk, such as in work by Kepler, it is about how Bruno is just wrong (and remember that Kepler was a Copernican). And what I definitely have not encountered is anyone thinking that certain ideas were “too scandalous to mention” — and my work has focused on those opposed to Copernicus (just the ones who supposedly would be scandalized). I make no absolute claims here, and reading up on Bruno is on my “to-do” list — I am just sharing my experience.

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