Category Archives: 20th Century

Strong Force – The Story of Physicist Shirley Ann Jackson

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 110 pages Level: all audiences This book by Diane O’Connell is a biography of Shirley Ann Jackson, the first African-American woman to obtain a Ph.D. from MIT (her field of study was nuclear physics). She went on to work at places including Fermilab, CERN, Stanford, and Bell Laboratories, and in the 1990’s was made head of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She later became president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. While the book is primarily about Jackson’s scientific career and the challenges she faced, it does discuss the role that church played in Jackson’s life, and her “strong belief in God”. Strong Force is published by the Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, and by Scholastic. It is written at a middle school level. The following is from Scholastic: Shirley Ann Jackson sees the unseen. She’s an expert in the invisible particles that make up everything in the universe, including you. Shirley Ann Jackson is a … Continue reading →

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the Hubble–Lemaître law

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article (2) 1900 words (total) Level: all audiences In October 2018 the International Astronomical Union voted overwhelmingly to change the name of the “Hubble law” (relating distance and velocity in the universe’s expansion) to the “Hubble–Lemaître law”, thus including the name of Fr. Georges Lemaître in the law.  These are two articles from the prominent journals Science and Nature discussing the IAU vote. Click here for an article on the vote from Nature. Click here for an article on the vote from Science.   … Continue reading →

The Montessori Method

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 376 pages Level: high school and above This book by Maria Montessori was originally published in Italian in 1909 and translated into English in 1912 under the title of Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in the Children’s Houses (the “Children’s Houses” being education programs for children in the slum tenements of Rome, run under the direction of Montessori).  J. McV. Hunt, in a 1964 introduction to The Montessori Method, said that “Montessori was reforming pedagogy and basing her innovations on her own clinical observations of children”, as compared to American educators such as John Dewey, who was “attempting to foster social reform in schools… [based on] reformed Darwinism”.  According to Hunt, interest in Montessori’s work surged following publication of The Montessori Method, owing to her successes in Rome.  But then that interest rapidly waned, owing to the fact that Montessori’s work clashed with the increasing popularity of ideas such as the relative unimportance of school experience for … Continue reading →

Pioneering Women in Computer Science: Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 350 words Level: all audiences A short article by Denise Gürer on Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller, BVM, one of the first two people, and the first woman, to receive a Ph.D. in computer science in the U.S.*  The article is an excerpt from a longer article in which Gürer discusses the work of various women who contributed to the field of computer science. [Click here to download PDF] *Gürer’s article states that Sr. Keller was “probably” the first, but a post by Ralph London on the blog of the Communications of the ACM, the journal in which Gürer first published her article, argues that Keller was indeed the first, along with Irving Tang, as both received their degrees in June 1965.     … Continue reading →

Who Discovered the Expanding Universe

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 22 pages Level: university Historians of science Helge Kragh and Robert W. Smith provide an overview of the discovery of the expanding universe and who might be credited with making that discovery.  They argue that, while Edwin Hubble is generally credited with the discovery of the expansion of the universe, and while a number of different scientists did in fact contribute to the discovery in significant ways, in fact Fr. Georges Lemaître discovered the expansion of the universe, insofar as he gave theoretical and observational reasons for it. (Lemaître would go on to become a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1936, and to serve as its president from 1960 until his death in 1966). Hubble, meanwhile was ambivilant towards the whole concept of an expanding universe. Kragh and Smith also discuss why Hubble is credited with the discovery. They trace the history of how Hubble’s role in the discovery was elevated, “at the expense of everyone … Continue reading →

What Maria Montessori Knew

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 3000 words Level: all audiences In this article in the July 9, 2018 issue of America: The Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry discusses Maria Montessori and her education method. Gobry writes that Montessori was the first woman doctor in Italy, a polymath who studied everything from mathematics to anthropology to philosophy at advanced levels, a scientist by training, and a devout Catholic and daily communicant. Gobry writes: The most important thing about Maria Montessori is that she never used the term “Montessori Method.” She always referred to her “method” as “scientific education” or “scientific pedagogy.” Why is this important? Every pedagogical method, whether “alternative” or “mainstream,” “progressive” or “traditional,” starts with an abstract theory (sometimes only implicit) of what a child is, how her mind works, how she learns. And it is starting from that theory that it deduces a practical method. Dr. Montessori, who was a scientist by training and never claimed to be anything more, worked the … Continue reading →

Pope Paul VI at the Vatican Observatory for Apollo 11

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Video 5 minutes Level: all audiences Good-quality color video from 1969 of Pope Paul VI at the Vatican Observatory at Castel Gandolfo during the Apollo 11 lunar landing.  The pope is seen viewing the moon through an auxiliary telescope attached to the V.O.’s 1.0 meter Schmidt telescope, and then speaking publicly on the landing from that telescope.  Most of the video is in Italian, but the last portion features the Pope offering a statement in English.     … Continue reading →

George Washington Carver: In His Own Words

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 208 pages Level: high school and above This book is a collection of letters by George Washington Carver, edited by Gary Kremer and published in 1987 by the University of Missouri Press. One chapter of the book is focused on “The Scientist as Mystic: Reading God out of Nature’s Great Book”. Kremer writes that Carver— [N]ever separated the worlds of science and religion; he saw them as mutually acceptable and compatible tools for arriving at truth…. [He was] a deeply religious man who treasured the world of nature and saw himself as a vehicle by which the secrets of nature could be understood and harnessed for the good of mankind. From the publisher: George Washington Carver (1864-1943), best known for his work as a scientist and a botanist, was an anomaly in his own time—a black man praised by white America. This selection of his letters and other writings reveals both the human side of Carver and the forces … Continue reading →

Priest Is A Member Of The Team Working At Nancay Research Centre (1959)

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Video 1 minute Level: all audiences Film titled “La Voix du Soleil” (“The Voice of the Sun”) from British Pathé features a priest at work at an early radio telescope in Nancay, France (the Station de Radioastronomie de Nançay). The film concerns radio observations of the sun. Click here to access this video via British Pathé.     … Continue reading →