The 18th century was a rich period in the history of science, including the publication of the final edition of Newton’s work, the acceptance of the Copernican system by the Church, and the active role of Jesuit observatories in observing the Transits of Venus. One hero of this era is Fr. Roger Boscovich, who (among his other accomplishments) first proposed the modern atomic theory of matter.
A Serious Meditation – from Benjamin Banneker’s 1793 Almanac
- Article
- 390 words
- Level: all audiences
A discussion of a Christian’s duty, from the 1793 almanac published by the self-taught American astronomer Benjamin Banneker of Baltimore County, Maryland.
Click here to access Banneker’s 1793 almanac, courtesy of the Smithsonian.
[Click here to download PDF]Banneker-MEDITATION
Accuracy of Solar Eclipse Observations Made by Jesuit Astronomers in China
- Article
- 10 pages
- Level: university
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.
Book: The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy
Book- 380 pages
- Level: high school 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.
Boscovich – his geodetic and cartographic studies
Article- 8 pages
- Level: high school and above
A heavily illustrated 2013 article by B. Crippa, V. Forcella, and L. Mussio, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:
Abstract: The name of Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich has many spellings: the Croatian Boscovič, linked to his Dalmatian origin, becomes Boscowich in German. Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich lived and worked in many cities: Rome, Pavia, Venice, Paris, London, Warsaw, Saint Petersburg and Constantinople, where he carried out diplomatic missions. He was a Jesuit and studied mathematics, physics, astronomy, geodesy, and cartography. His studies in geodesy and cartography were developed in Italy: he measured the meridian between Rome and Rimini, he worked on the new map of the Papal State and he designed the Brera Observatory. In the first part of the present work, we present Boscovich’s activities from a chronological point of view. In the second part, we focus on two specific arguments, related to geodesy and cartography: the new map of the Papal State and an attempt to rebuild the associated triangulation.
Click here for this article from NASA ADS.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana.
Boscovich and the Brera Observatory
Article- 10 pages
- Level: university
A 2013 article by Elio Antonello of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:
Abstract: In the mid 18th century both theoretical and practical astronomy were cultivated in Milan by Barnabites and Jesuits. In 1763 Boscovich was appointed to the chair of mathematics of the University of Pavia in the Duchy of Milan, and the following year he designed an observatory for the Jesuit Collegium of Brera in Milan. The Specola was built in 1765 and it became quickly one of the main european observatories. We discuss the relation between Boscovich and Brera in the framework of a short biography. An account is given of the initial research activity in the Specola, of the departure of Boscovich from Milan in 1773 and his coming back just before his death.
Click here for this article from NASA ADS.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana.
Boscovich, the discovery of Uranus and his inclination to theoretical astronomy
Article- 8 pages
- Level: university
A 2013 article by L. Guzzardi, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:
Abstract: On March 13th 1781 Frederick William Herschel observed a bizarre celestial body moving in the sky. Retrospectively, that astral body was not at all new at that point. It was observed by a number of astronomers since the end of 17th century (and maybe earlier). But they failed to find out its motion and catalogued it as a fixed star – each time a different one. On the other hand, Herschel realized it was moving, and catalogued it as a comet. That news of a new finding in the sky rapidly spread throughout Europe, and after some months the `Herschel’s comet’ was correctly recognized as a new planet, which will be named Uranus. The present paper assumes the event of the discovery of Uranus and the assessment of its planetary nature as a system of complicated, interrelated processes which involved a number of actors in the 17th-century astronomical community. In this framework, the role of the Dalmatian-born Jesuit scientist Ruggiero G. Boscovich is emphasized and the meaning of this discovery is discussed as an example of his interest in theoretical research more than in observational science.
Click here for this article from NASA ADS.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana.
Copernicus and the “High Seas”
Article (blog post series)- 3600 words
- Level: all audiences
In this series of posts, written for The Catholic Astronomer blog, Christopher Graney discusses “Two Spheres Theory” regarding the shape and composition of the Earth. The Two Spheres Theory was a medieval idea that came to be taken as scientific evidence for existence of, and direct action in the world of, God. However, the Two Spheres Theory was soundly disproven by, among other things, Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the lands now known as the Americas.
Click here to read Part II of this series.
Emilie Du Châtelet on the existence of God
- Article
- 6 pages
- Level: high school and above
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, wrote, among other things, a translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia (published posthumously in 1759), and a physics textbook for her son, entitled Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics, published in 1740). The second chapter of this textbook was addressed to the question of God’s existence.
[Click here to download PDF]
DuChatelet-On-Existence-God
Accuracy of Solar Eclipse Observations Made by Jesuit Astronomers in China
- Article
- 10 pages
- Level: university
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.
Jesuit Science
- Article and Video
- 750 words (article), 1 hour (video)
- Level: all 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 Pope and the Englishwoman: Benedict XIV, Jane Squire, the Bologna Academy, and the Problem of Longitude
Article (book chapter)- 20 pages
- Level: university
“The Pope and the Englishwoman: Benedict XIV, Jane Squire, the Bologna Academy, and the Problem of Longitude”, by Paula Findlen of Stanford University, is a chapter in Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment: Art, Science, and Spirituality, a collection of essays concerning the mid-eighteenth-century papacy of Benedict XIV (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini), published by the University of Toronto Press. Findlen tells the story of Jane Squire, an English Catholic who had worked out a new system of celestial navigation and who was determined that her ideas be heard by the establishment. As she was unable to get a hearing in England, in 1743 Squire wrote to Pope Benedict XIV, who was open to the scientific work of women. From the article:
Squire argued: “my being a Woman, excludes me not from the Blessing of being a Christian; a Character that determines the Business of the reasonable Creature; by a Determination made by its Creator”… Squire characterized herself as someone naturally drawn to mathematical problems as a pleasing pastime: “to study the Law of God Day and Night, is my proper Business; Philosophy, my Amusement; and Mathematicks, my Play-things… I see not therefore, why I should confine myself to Needles, Cards, and Dice.”
Benedict took notice of Squire’s letter and had her work reviewed by Italian scholars. Unfortunately, Squire died shortly after sending her letter, and her system of navigation was not practical.
Click here for a preview of this article, courtesy of Google Books.
Maria Gaetana Agnesi – Mathematics and the Making of the Catholic Enlightenment
Article- 29 pages
- Level: university
This article by Massimo Mazzotti discusses Maria Gaetana Agnesi, a child prodigy who obtained education and acclaim for her abilities in math and physics, as well as support from Pope Benedict XIV. But after the death of her father she abandoned her work in mathematics and physics and chose a life of service to those in need. In this article (published in 2001 in Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society, Vol. 92, no. 4, pgs. 657-683) Mazzotti writes:
Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) is known as the author of a textbook on calculus that appeared in Milan in 1748. For the first time a woman was able to establish herself as a legitimate mathematician and publish her work…. In her Instituzioni analitiche she presented the most complete introduction to algebra, analytic geometry, and differential and integral calculus yet published in Europe. Far from being a tool to subvert traditional metaphysical assumptions and religious dogmas, Agnesi thought of mathematical analysis as an intellectual practice that could play an important role in the spiritual life of the believer….
In 1752 she renounced her rights to the family estate in exchange for an annuity that allowed her to host an increasing number of women in need and to devote all her time to their assistance. In 1759 she left the palazzo, moving to a more modest apartment nearby where she continued her catechistic activity and her volunteering at the Ospedale Maggiore. She worked with women from the urban lower classes, providing help and education to orphans, prostitutes, the elderly, the sick, and the mentally ill. Agnesi wanted to offer all of them the opportunity to embrace faith, whether to rescue them for dignified, useful lives or to enlighten the last part of their earthly paths. In 1771 a new charitable institution to assist the urban poor, the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, was opened in Milan. Archbishop Pozzobonelli asked Agnesi to become the director of the female department, which eventually housed about 450 patients…. Agnesi, who meanwhile had renounced all her possessions and was living in poverty, moved to the Pio Albergo Trivulzio to be closer to those she assisted. There she died of pneumonia in January 1799…. Her body was buried in a mass grave outside of Porta Romana, the southern gate of the town. Frisi tells us that, to those few who managed to contact her in her later years, Agnesi explained: “Man always acts to achieve goals; the goal of the Christian is the glory of God. I hope my studies have brought glory to God, as they were useful to others, and derived from obedience, because that was my father’s will. Now I have found better ways and means to serve God, and to be useful to others.”…
A wealthy family eager for social enhancement, a Church eager for new charismatic figures, and a reformist religiosity characterized by favorable views about the education of women and intellectual achievement: these were the conditions that made it possible for Agnesi to establish herself as a legitimate author of a mathematical treatise and as an advisor to the archbishop of Milan on theological matters. It can be suggested that the same religious reformism was a factor in the achievements of other eighteenth-century learned women, like Laura Bassi or Cristina Roccati….
Click here to access this article through JSTOR. Many libraries provide full access to JSTOR.
Click here for an 1801 English translation of Agnesi’s book, from Google Books.
Boscovich and the Brera Observatory
- Article
- 10 pages
- Level: university
A 2013 article by Elio Antonello of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:
Abstract: In the mid 18th century both theoretical and practical astronomy were cultivated in Milan by Barnabites and Jesuits. In 1763 Boscovich was appointed to the chair of mathematics of the University of Pavia in the Duchy of Milan, and the following year he designed an observatory for the Jesuit Collegium of Brera in Milan. The Specola was built in 1765 and it became quickly one of the main european observatories. We discuss the relation between Boscovich and Brera in the framework of a short biography. An account is given of the initial research activity in the Specola, of the departure of Boscovich from Milan in 1773 and his coming back just before his death.
Click here for this article from NASA ADS.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana.
Jesuits: Savants
Article (book chapter)- 46 pages
- Level: university
This article by Mordechai Feingold is the introductory chapter to the 2003 book Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, edited by Feingold and published by The MIT Press. Feingold provides an overview of Jesuit scientists and of the advantages and disadvantages (from a scientific point of view) of doing science within the Jesuit order—an organization whose mission was not scientific but spiritual. Feingold writes:
The aim of this introductory chapter is to get past the stereotypes that surrounded the Society of Jesus during the first 200 years of its existence and evaluate the scientific dimension of its intellectual contribution, independent of its religious mission. It is my contention that, by and large, the scholarly activities and aspirations of Jesuits were indistinguishable from those of other contemporary savants, secular or ordained, irrespective of denomination. True, constraints on the pursuit of secular learning were more stringent among Jesuits, as were the mechanisms regulating their teachings, publications, and contacts with outsiders. But this cannot be automatically construed to mean that the Jesuits harbored a greater number of reactionary, prejudiced, or bigoted scholars than did other Catholic orders (or, for that matter, the various Protestant churches). Indeed, my research indicates that while scholarship often served partisan goals in the charged religious atmosphere of the early modern period, Jesuit scientific practitioners as a group seem to have resisted the temptation to yoke science to other ends as well as did practitioners of any other religious denomination….
It may seem surprising that, notwithstanding [the constraints, and disciplinary measures associated with them] (which must have been applied to hundreds of Jesuit philosophers and mathematicians in the course of the early modern period), only a few Jesuits left or were expelled from the Society as a consequence of such measures. In part, this is a testimony to the gravity with which Jesuit practitioners took their vows. But it is also clear that for most members—who never doubted the primacy of the religious mission of the Society even when they differed on the extent of the dangers that the new philosophies posed to the traditional relations between philosophy and theology—the constraints were a burden to be contended with from within the Order. Many continued to preach the benefit of at least a modicum of philosophical freedom, even in print.
Click here for an excerpt, courtesy of Google Books.
From the publisher, MIT Press:
Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus was viewed for centuries as an impediment to the development of modern science. The Jesuit educational system was deemed conservative and antithetical to creative thought, while the Order and its members were blamed by Galileo, Descartes, and their disciples for virtually every proceeding against the new science. No wonder a consensus emerged that little reason existed for historians to take Jesuit science seriously. Only during the past two decades have scholars begun to question this received view of the Jesuit role in the Scientific Revolution, and this book contributes significantly to that reassessment. Focusing on the institutional setting of Jesuit science, the contributors take a new and broader look at the overall intellectual environment of the Collegio Romano and other Jesuit colleges to see how Jesuit scholars taught and worked, to examine the context of the Jesuit response to the new philosophies, and to chart the Jesuits’ scientific contributions. Their conclusions indicate that Jesuit practitioners were indeed instrumental in elevating the status of mathematics and in stressing the importance of experimental science; yet, at the same time, the Jesuits were members of a religious order with a clearly defined apostolic mission. Understanding both the contributions of Jesuit practitioners and the constraints under which they worked helps us to gain a clearer and more complete perspective on the emergence of the scientific worldview.
Giuseppe Piazzi and the Discovery of the Proper Motion of 61-Cygni
Fr. Giuseppe Piazzi
- Article
- 8 pages
- Level: university
Fr. Giuseppe Piazza discovered the proper motion of the star 61 Cygni at the end of the eighteenth century. A star’s proper motion is its motion across the sky compared to other stars. The position of 61 Cygni, a star that is faint but visible to the naked eye, changes measurably over the course of a year. A star whose position changes like this must be a relatively nearby star. In this 1990 article in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, Georgia Fodera Serio of the Palermo Observatory discusses the story of Fr. Piazzi and his “flying star”, and writes on the importance of Piazzi’s discovery. Serio notes that Piazzi “abandoned the old paradigm that ‘brightness implies nearness'”. This was an important step for astronomers, who previously had supposed that those stars that appear brighter in our night sky are nearer to us. In the 1830s the German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel would measure the distance to 61 Cygni using annual parallax, finding that it is about 10 light years away. This was the first direct measurement of the distance of any star other than the sun.
Click here to access this article courtesy of NASA ADS.
Boscovich, the discovery of Uranus and his inclination to theoretical astronomy
- Article
- 8 pages
- Level: university
A 2013 article by L. Guzzardi, published in Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana Supplement, concerning the 18th-century Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich:
Abstract: On March 13th 1781 Frederick William Herschel observed a bizarre celestial body moving in the sky. Retrospectively, that astral body was not at all new at that point. It was observed by a number of astronomers since the end of 17th century (and maybe earlier). But they failed to find out its motion and catalogued it as a fixed star – each time a different one. On the other hand, Herschel realized it was moving, and catalogued it as a comet. That news of a new finding in the sky rapidly spread throughout Europe, and after some months the `Herschel’s comet’ was correctly recognized as a new planet, which will be named Uranus. The present paper assumes the event of the discovery of Uranus and the assessment of its planetary nature as a system of complicated, interrelated processes which involved a number of actors in the 17th-century astronomical community. In this framework, the role of the Dalmatian-born Jesuit scientist Ruggiero G. Boscovich is emphasized and the meaning of this discovery is discussed as an example of his interest in theoretical research more than in observational science.
Click here for this article from NASA ADS.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana.
Jesuit Science
- Article and Video
- 750 words (article), 1 hour (video)
- Level: all 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.”
Tradition and Today: Religion and Science
- Article (PDF)
- 12 pages
- Level: university
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.
[Click here to download PDF]
Sci-Rel_4_epochs
Giuseppe Piazzi and the Discovery of Ceres
Fr. Giuseppe Piazzi
- Article (book chapter)
- 8 pages
- Level: university
The first asteroid was discovered by Fr. Giuseppe Piazza, who gave it the name Ceres. Fr. Piazzi believed that in fact he had discovered a planet, but was hesitant to say so directly, and often referred to Ceres as a “comet”. Today Ceres is classified as a “dwarf planet”. This article on Piazzi is from the book Asteroids III, published in 2002 by the University of Arizona Press and the Lunar and Planetary Institute of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). From the chapter abstract:
In this chapter we focus on the circumstances that led Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) to discover the first asteroid, Ceres, on January 1, 1801. Through the examination of published and archival documentation, we shed light on the reaction of the astronomical community at the announcement of the discovery and on Piazzi’s puzzling behavior. In the end, we briefly discuss the discoveries of Pallas, Juno, and Vesta and the theories put forward to explain their nature.
Click here to download a PDF of this article from USRA.
Click here to access this article via Google Books.
Emilie Du Châtelet on the existence of God
- Article
- 6 pages
- Level: high school and above
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, wrote, among other things, a translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia (published posthumously in 1759), and a physics textbook for her son, entitled Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics, published in 1740). The second chapter of this textbook was addressed to the question of God’s existence.
[Click here to download PDF]
DuChatelet-On-Existence-God
A Serious Meditation – from Benjamin Banneker’s 1793 Almanac
- Article
- 390 words
- Level: all audiences
A discussion of a Christian’s duty, from the 1793 almanac published by the self-taught American astronomer Benjamin Banneker of Baltimore County, Maryland.
Click here to access Banneker’s 1793 almanac, courtesy of the Smithsonian.
[Click here to download PDF]Banneker-MEDITATION
Isaac Newton – The ‘General Scholium’ of the Principia
Book chapter- 5 pages
- Level: university
Isaac Newton, for his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, arguably the most important work of science ever produced (first published in 1687), wrote a ‘General Scholium’ which discusses the solar system and the physics behind the solar system as the work of God. Newton is often said to have written more about theology than about mathematics and physics, although his views on the nature of God were unorthodox and much of what he wrote regarding matters relating to religion was never published. From the ‘General Scholium’:
This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. And if the fixed Stars are the centers of other like systems, these, being form’d by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed Stars is of the same nature with the light of the Sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems. And lest the systems of the fixed Stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those Systems at immense distances from one another.
This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all: And on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God παντοκράτωρ [Pantokrator], or Universal Ruler. For God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God, not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: These are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God; a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a Living, Intelligent, and Powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is Supreme or most Perfect. He is Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from Eternity to Eternity; his presence from Infinity to Infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not Eternity and Infinity, but Eternal and Infinite; he is not Duration and Space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever, and is every where present; and, by existing always and every where, he constitutes Duration and Space.
Pope Benedict XIV – Benedict’s Patronage of Learned Women
- Article (book chapter)
- 20 pages
- Level: university
“Benedict’s Patronage of Learned Women”, by Marta Cavazza of the University of Bologna, is a chapter in Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment: Art, Science, and Spirituality, a collection of essays concerning the mid-eighteenth-century papacy of Benedict XIV (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini), published by the University of Toronto Press. Cavazza writes:
[A] handful of women… received public recognition in eighteen-century Italy, especially in Bologna, for their philosophical [scientific], mathematical, and anatomical knowledge. The instigator and director of these events was in most cases Benedict XIV… [who] used his moral authority and his sovereign power to encourage and reward women who excelled in the fields of philosophy and medicine, helping them obtain public honours and academic positions that were reserved for men during that era… They became “a symbol of the successes of the Bolognese science” chiefly thanks to Benedict XIV’s patronage. The connection between the promotion of modern science and not only the recognition of the intellectual dignity of women, but also the legitimation of a role for them within cultural institutions (almost) equal to that of men, was undoubtedly one of the most original and progressive features of Pope Lambertini’s reformist engagement, an engagement carried on the the context of the brief season of the Catholic Enlightenment, not by chance coincident with his pontificate.
Click here for a preview of this article, courtesy of Google Books.
The World of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Mathematician of God
Book- 240 pages
- Level: university
This book by Massimo Mazzoti, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2007, covers the life and times and work of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, a remarkable eighteenth-century woman who lived in a unique period of Italian history when Italy was perhaps the only place where women were encouraged to pursue serious study in math and science.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
From the publisher:
She is best known for her curve, the witch of Agnesi, which appears in almost all high school and undergraduate math books. She was a child prodigy who frequented the salon circuit, discussing mathematics, philosophy, history, and music in multiple languages. She wrote one of the first vernacular textbooks on calculus and was appointed chair of mathematics at the university in Bologna. In later years, however, she became a prominent figure within the Catholic Enlightenment, gave up the academic world, and devoted herself to the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the homeless. Indeed, the life of Maria Agnesi reveals a complex and enigmatic figure—one of the most fascinating characters in the history of mathematics.
Using newly discovered archival documents, Massimo Mazzotti reconstructs the wide spectrum of Agnesi’s social experience and examines her relationships to various traditions—religious, political, social, and mathematical. This meticulous study shows how she and her fellow Enlightenment Catholics modified tradition in an effort to reconcile aspects of modern philosophy and science with traditional morality and theology.
Mazzotti’s original and provocative investigation is also the first targeted study of the Catholic Enlightenment and its influence on modern science. He argues that Agnesi’s life is the perfect lens through which we can gain a greater understanding of mid-eighteenth-century cultural trends in continental Europe.
Isaac Newton – Two books relating to religion
Books (two)- 376 pages;
- Level: university
Isaac Newton, one of the most prominent scientific figures in history, is often said to have written more about theology than about mathematics and physics. However, his views on the nature of God were unorthodox, and much of what he wrote regarding matters relating to religion was never published. However, his Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms was published in 1728. It contains material such as Newton’s diagram of the Temple of Solomon, shown here. Newton’s Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, was published posthumously in 1733 and is another example of Newton’s writing on matters relating to religion.
Click here for Chronology, courtesy of Erara.
Click here for Observations, courtesy of Archive.org
Emilie Du Châtelet: Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings
Book- 424 pages
- Level: high school and above
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, wrote, among other things, a translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia (published posthumously in 1759), and a physics textbook for her son, entitled Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics, published in 1740). This collection of her philosophical and scientific writings, edited by Judith P. Zinsser, includes translations of substantial portions of these works and others. Zinsser’s translation of Institutions contains all of the Preface (discussing, among other things, the utility of mathematics and the usefulness of experiments), all of the first chapter (discussing principles of knowledge and reasoning), all of the second chapter (which contains logical arguments for the existence of God and for determining the basics of God’s nature), as well as chapters on time, matter, motion, and force. Emilie Du Châtelet was a complex person—she sought education and access to the world of science at a time when women were largely unwelcome in the field, but she focused on her son’s education in science far more than her daughter’s; she attended mass regularly and wrote on the existence of God, but maintained a long-running affair with Voltaire, and in her unpublished writings wrote detailed and harsh criticism of scripture. Zinnser’s book consists largely of translations of Du Châtelet’s work, but also includes some background information.
From the book’s publisher, the University of Chicago Press:
Though most historians remember her as the mistress of Voltaire, Emilie Du Châtelet (1706–49) was an accomplished writer in her own right, who published multiple editions of her scientific writings during her lifetime, as well as a translation of Newton’s Principia Mathematica that is still the standard edition of that work in French. Had she been a man, her reputation as a member of the eighteenth-century French intellectual elite would have been assured.
In the 1970s, feminist historians of science began the slow work of recovering Du Châtelet’s writings and her contributions to history and philosophy. For this edition, Judith P. Zinsser has selected key sections from Du Châtelet’s published and unpublished works, as well as related correspondence, part of her little-known critique of the Old and New Testaments, and a treatise on happiness that is a refreshingly uncensored piece of autobiography—making all of them available for the first time in English. The resulting volume will recover Châtelet’s place in the pantheon of French letters and culture.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science
- Book
- 304 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2015 book, published by Harvard University Press (HUP) and edited in part by Ronald Numbers, is a follow-up to the 2009 book Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion which was also published by HUP and edited by Numbers. From HUP:
A falling apple inspired Isaac Newton’s insight into the law of gravity—or so the story goes. Is it true? Perhaps not. But the more intriguing question is why such stories endure as explanations of how science happens. Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science brushes away popular misconceptions to provide a clearer picture of great scientific breakthroughs from ancient times to the present. Among the myths refuted in this volume is the idea that no science was done in the Dark Ages, that alchemy and astrology were purely superstitious pursuits, that fear of public reaction alone led Darwin to delay publishing his theory of evolution, and that Gregor Mendel was far ahead of his time as a pioneer of genetics. Several twentieth-century myths about particle physics, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and more are discredited here as well. In addition, a number of broad generalizations about science go under the microscope of history: the notion that religion impeded science, that scientists typically adhere to a codified “scientific method,” and that a bright line can be drawn between legitimate science and pseudoscience. Edited by Ronald Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis, Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science debunks the widespread belief that science advances when individual geniuses experience “Eureka!” moments and suddenly comprehend what those around them could never imagine. Science has always been a cooperative enterprise of dedicated, fallible human beings, for whom context, collaboration, and sheer good luck are the essential elements of discovery.
Click here for additional information from the publisher.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
Book: The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy
- Book
- 380 pages
- Level: high school 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.
George Berkeley – The Analyst; The Defence of Free-Thinking in Mathematics
Books (two)- 94 pages; 70 pages
- Level: university
George Berkeley’s 1734 The Analyst; or, A Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician criticizes how mathematicians thought regarding the “Method of Fluxions” (in modern terms, “Calculus”) of Isaac Newton, especially when some of those mathematicians were “infidels” (atheists) who criticized theological thought. Thus the title page of The Analyst quotes the Book of Matthew: “First cast out the beam out of thine own Eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye [7:5, KJV].”
Berkeley, a bishop in the Church of Ireland, acknowledges that Fluxions is “the general Key, by help whereof the modern Mathematicians unlock the secrets of Geometry, and consequently of Nature…. [and] that which hath enabled them so remarkably to outgo the Ancients in discovering Theorems and solving Problems….” However, Fluxions relies on concepts of infinity, applied repeatedly, and “to conceive a Quantity infinitely small… is, I confess, above my Capacity. But to conceive a Part of such infinitely small Quantity, that shall be still infinitely less than it… is, I suspect, an infinite Difficulty to any Man whatsoever….”
A major point of Berkeley’s is the idea of a second or third or fourth fluxion—called today a second, third, or fourth derivative. A derivative is a slope at some certain point—a point being infinitesimal in nature. Berkeley raises the conceptual problem of a slope within that slope, and then within that, and so on? Such things, he says, are nevertheless accepted by the same people who demand rigorous evidence in theology, and who claim to only believe what evidence they can see:
He who can digest a second or third Fluxion, a second or third Difference, need not, methinks, be squeamish about any Point in Divinity…. [W]ith what appearance of Reason shall any Man presume to say, that Mysteries may not be Objects of Faith, at the same time that he himself admits such obscure Mysteries to be the Object of Science?
Thus Berkeley argues that atheist mathematicians, who are so particular about points of religion, are more lax about their own field, submitting to authority, taking things on trust, and believing things that cannot be seen and mysteries that cannot be conceived. They have obstructions in their own eyes that they should look to cast out.
Berkeley’s 1735 A Defence of Free-Thinking in Mathematics responds to criticism of The Analyst. Berkeley emphasizes his interest in Truth, as he sees it, as opposed to the interest in Authority of the Infidel/atheist Mathematician. He asserts that the issue is not whether the “Method of Fluxions” is functionally useful, but whether the concepts in it are conceivable and solid, or whether mathematicians essentially accept it on faith based in its usefulness and in the reputation of Newton. Berkeley writes:
There are too many that deride Mysteries, and yet admire Fluxions; who yield that Faith to a mere Mortal, which they deny to Jesus Christ, whose Religion they make it their Study and Business to discredit…. I endeavour to shew, that such Men are defective in Point of Reason and Judgment, and that they do the very Thing they would seem to despise.
Stephen Mason, in his 1962 A History of the Sciences, credits Berkeley’s work with stimulating British mathematicians to inquire into the logical foundations of Calculus, and to place it upon a more secure foundation.
Click here to read The Analyst, courtesy of Archive.org.
Click here to read a 1901 re-publication of The Analyst, courtesy of Google Books.
Click here to read Defence, courtesy of Erara.
Click here to read a 1901 re-publication of Defence, courtesy of Google Books.