Kepler, Bruno & Galileo

(Post from 8/11 - I was not able to log onto the blog on that date.) Although I appreciated the creative structure of Kepler's Somnium and the purpose of the text, I had a hard time reading it. This may be because of my lack of knowledge with regard to Kepler and astronomy. I did some online research to get a grasp of who Kepler was, so the text would make more sense to me. I won't repeat what everyone already knows; however, I did find
that this text is sometimes described as the first work of science fiction. Kind of interesting.

I was more interested in reading about Galileo and Bruno; these two were bold. I am of course familiar with Galileo, but I do not know very much about Bruno. I have been to Rome a couple of times, so I am sure that I have seen his statue at Campo de Fiori, but I was too overwhelmed to remember it. I think it is interesting that Bruno wanted to use science to unite the protestants and catholics in Europe.

With regard to Galileo, I enjoyed reading The Starry Messenger. It was interesting to read about the discovery of things that seems so obvious to us now. I found the text easy to follow, and I felt as if I was receiving a mini-lesson in earth science class. With regard to the Letter to Christina, I like the way in which Galileo lays out his argument. He does a good job of directly addressing the conflict between science and religion. Because I have little to no religious background, I rarely think about this. However, Galileo's text clearly conveys how difficult it was to put forth new ideas during a time when unpopular ideas were disregarded because they might destroy the order of things. I immediately saw the connection between Galileo and Milton's Paradise Lost. If I remember correctly, in Paradise Lost the quest for knowledge is not encouraged...but we will get to that on Wednesday.