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Author Topic: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)  (Read 534 times)

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Offline Neil Obstat

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    Nicolaus Copernicus occupies May 23rd as his Feast Day, on the Episcopal Calendar along with Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), the latter having been born 28 years after the former had died. I find it noteworthy that Episcopalians have updated their liturgy in this way. So I'm providing this information for the purpose of our awareness of what is going on in the world around us, after all, cosmology is in the broadest sense all about what is really going on around us.
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    The life, work and controversy of Copernicus centers not on any dispute over the "shape of the earth" but entirely over the question of whether the earth (solid land, terra) is at the center of the universe (geocentrism) or whether the sun ("fire") is at the center (of our solar system and/or of the entire universe). If there had been a raging dispute at that time over whether the earth were "flat" or spheroid, it seems rather odd that no historical mention of it can be found, don't you think?
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    The history and development of man's conception of what constitutes the objective celestial order is a long and complex story. What is truly going on in the depths of the universe is one thing, and what man thinks of it is perhaps quite another. When it comes to objective truth, however, it should be kept in mind that conformity of the mind to reality is how we define "truth."
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    http://satucket.com/lectionary/copernicus_kepler.htm
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    From the web page above, "Calendar of the Church Year according to the Episcopal Church") :
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    NICHOLAS COPERNICUS and JOHANNES KEPLER
    ASTRONOMERS, 1543 & 1630

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    Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe.
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    Copernicus' epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), published just before his death in 1543, is often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the scientific revolution. His heliocentric model, with the Sun at the center of the universe, demonstrated that the observed motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting Earth at rest in the center of the universe. His work stimulated further scientific investigations, becoming a landmark in the history of science that is often referred to as the Copernican Revolution.
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    Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Among his many responsibilities, astronomy figured as little more than an avocation – yet it was in that field that he made his mark upon the world.
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    At original publication, Copernicus' epoch-making book caused only mild controversy, and provoked no fierce sermons about contradicting Holy Scripture. It was only three years later, in 1546, that a Dominican, Giovanni Maria Tolosani, denounced the theory in an appendix to a work defending the absolute truth of Scripture. He also noted that the Master of the Sacred Palace (i.e., the Catholic Church's chief censor), Bartolomeo Spina, a friend and fellow Dominican, had planned to condemn De revolutionibus but had been prevented from doing so by his illness and death.
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    It was not until six decades after Spina and Tolosani's attacks on Copernicus's work that the Catholic Church took any official action against it. In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds that the supposedly Pythagorean doctrine that the Earth moves and the Sun does not was "false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture." The same decree also prohibited any work that defended the mobility of the Earth or the immobility of the Sun, or that attempted to reconcile these assertions with Scripture. The corrections to De revolutionibus, which omitted or altered nine sentences, were issued four years later, in 1620. This censorship was not lifted until 1835.
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    http://satucket.com/lectionary/copernicus_kepler.htm
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    Some sources state that Copernicus was a Catholic priest, and this one (Episcopal) says he was a "Catholic cleric." A man becomes a cleric in the Catholic Church when he receives the habit and tonsure, whether he eventually is ordained a priest is another matter. I couldn't find any mention of a date Copernicus was ordained a priest, and not a few sources claim that he never was ordained.
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    On the left side bar of the same web page is found the following:
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    Readings:
    Quote
    Psalm 8
    Genesis 1:14-19
    1 Corinthians 2:6-12
    Matthew 2:1-11a
    Preface of God the Father
    [Common of a Scientist or Environmentalist]
    [For Scientists and Environmentalists]
    [For Space Exploration]


    PRAYER (traditional language)
    As the heavens declare thy glory, O God, and the firmament showeth thy handiwork, we bless thy Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight thou didst bestow upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that thou wouldst continue to advance our understanding of thy cosmos, for our good and for thy glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

    .
    PRAYER (contemporary language)
    As the heavens declare your glory, O God, and the firmament shows your handiwork, we bless your Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight you bestowed upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that you would continue to advance our understanding of your cosmos, for our good and for your glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

    This commemoration adopted provisionally at General Convention 2009
    Return to Lectionary Home Page
    Webmaster: Charles Wohlers
    Last updated: 26 March 2016
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    The same web page contains the following regarding Kepler:
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    Johannes Kepler (December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. They also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation.
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    During his career, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, Austria, an assistant to astronomer Tycho Brahe, the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II, a mathematics teacher in Linz, Austria, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. He also did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope (the Keplerian Telescope), and helped to legitimize the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei.
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    Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy (a branch of mathematics within the liberal arts) and physics (a branch of natural philosophy). Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason.
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    Johannes Kepler's first major astronomical work, Mysterium Cosmographicuм (The Cosmographic Mystery, 1596), was the first published defense of the Copernican system. As he indicated in the title, Kepler thought he had revealed God’s geometrical plan for the universe. Much of Kepler’s enthusiasm for the Copernican system stemmed from his theological convictions about the connection between the physical and the spiritual; the universe itself was an image of God, with the Sun corresponding to the Father, the stellar sphere to the Son, and the intervening space between to the Holy Spirit. His first manuscript of Mysterium contained an extensive chapter reconciling heliocentrism with biblical passages that seemed to support geocentrism.
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    The extended line of research that culminated in Astronomia nova (A New Astronomy)—including the first two laws of planetary motion—began with the analysis, under Tycho's direction, of Mars' orbit. Based on measurements of the aphelion and perihelion of the Earth and Mars, he created a formula in which a planet's rate of motion is inversely proportional to its distance from the Sun; by late 1602 Kepler reformulated the proportion in terms of geometry: planets sweep out equal areas in equal times—Kepler's second law of planetary motion. He then set about calculating the entire orbit of Mars, using the geometrical rate law and assuming an egg-shaped ovoid orbit. After approximately 40 failed attempts, in early 1605 he at last hit upon the idea of an ellipse, which he had previously assumed to be too simple a solution for earlier astronomers to have overlooked. Finding that an elliptical orbit fit the Mars data, he immediately concluded that all planets move in ellipses, with the sun at one focus—Kepler's first law of planetary motion.
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    Kepler was convinced "that the geometrical things have provided the Creator with the model for decorating the whole world." In Harmonices Mundi (Harmony of the Worlds), he attempted to explain the proportions of the natural world—particularly the astronomical and astrological aspects—in terms of music. Among many other harmonies, Kepler articulated what came to be known as the third law of planetary motion. He then tried many combinations until he discovered that (approximately) "The square of the periodic times are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances." When conjoined with Christian Huygens' newly discovered law of centrifugal force it enabled Isaac Newton and others to demonstrate independently that the presumed gravitational attraction between the Sun and its planets decreased with the square of the distance between them.
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    In 1615, he completed the first of three volumes of Epitome astronomia Copernicanae (Epitome of Copernican Astronomy). Despite the title, which referred simply to heliocentrism, Kepler's textbook culminated in his own ellipse-based system. The Epitome became Kepler's most influential work. It contained all three laws of planetary motion and attempted to explain heavenly motions through physical causes. It was read by astronomers throughout Europe, and following Kepler's death it was the main vehicle for spreading Kepler's ideas. In the late 17th century, a number of physical astronomy theories drawing from Kepler's work—notably those of Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Robert Hooke—began to incorporate attractive forces (though not the quasi-spiritual motive species postulated by Kepler) and the Cartesian concept of inertia. This culminated in Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687), in which Newton derived Kepler's laws of planetary motion from a force-based theory of universal gravitation.
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    Offline happenby

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    Re: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
    « Reply #1 on: May 30, 2018, 07:23:55 PM »
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  • Incomplete information designed to favor the pagan heliocentric globe model.  Whoever falls for it has you to thank. 


    Offline Neil Obstat

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    Re: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
    « Reply #2 on: May 30, 2018, 09:34:38 PM »
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    Someone made some typos in the "traditional language" version. 
    Where they have "thy" or "thou" or "thee" referring to God, it should be Thy and Thou and Thee
    And the English really ought to be aware that the traditional term is Holy Ghost, not Holy Spirit:
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    PRAYER (traditional language) 
    As the heavens declare thy glory, O God, and the firmament showeth thy handiwork, we bless thy Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight thou didst bestow upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that thou wouldst continue to advance our understanding of thy cosmos, for our good and for thy glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

    .
    PRAYER (contemporary language) 
    As the heavens declare your glory, O God, and the firmament shows your handiwork, we bless your Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight you bestowed upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that you would continue to advance our understanding of your cosmos, for our good and for your glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

    .
    Corrected version:
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    As the heavens declare Thy glory, O God, and the firmament showeth Thy handiwork, we bless Thy Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight Thou didst bestow upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that Thou wouldst continue to advance our understanding of Thy cosmos, for our good and for Thy glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
    .--. .-.-.- ... .-.-.- ..-. --- .-. - .... . -.- .. -. --. -.. --- -- --..-- - .... . .--. --- .-- . .-. .- -. -.. -....- -....- .--- ..- ... - -.- .. -.. -.. .. -. --. .-.-.

    Offline Smedley Butler

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    Re: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
    « Reply #3 on: May 31, 2018, 07:54:34 AM »
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  • "Regarded as the starting point of the scientific revolution. .."

    Revolution against what?

    The Church, of course. 

    Offline Meg

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    Re: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
    « Reply #4 on: May 31, 2018, 12:16:29 PM »
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  • .
    Someone made some typos in the "traditional language" version.
    Where they have "thy" or "thou" or "thee" referring to God, it should be Thy and Thou and Thee
    And the English really ought to be aware that the traditional term is Holy Ghost, not Holy Spirit:
    .
    PRAYER (traditional language)
    As the heavens declare thy glory, O God, and the firmament showeth thy handiwork, we bless thy Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight thou didst bestow upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that thou wouldst continue to advance our understanding of thy cosmos, for our good and for thy glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

    .
    PRAYER (contemporary language)
    As the heavens declare your glory, O God, and the firmament shows your handiwork, we bless your Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight you bestowed upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that you would continue to advance our understanding of your cosmos, for our good and for your glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

    .
    Corrected version:
    .
    As the heavens declare Thy glory, O God, and the firmament showeth Thy handiwork, we bless Thy Name for the gifts of knowledge and insight Thou didst bestow upon Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray that Thou wouldst continue to advance our understanding of Thy cosmos, for our good and for Thy glory; through Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

    What point are you trying to make, exactly, by showing the (heretical) Episcopalian church prayers which honor Copernicus and Kepler?

    Are you perhaps thinking of switching your religious affiliation to that which honors Copernicus and Kepler?
    "It is licit to resist a Sovereign Pontiff who is trying to destroy the Church. I say it is licit to resist him in not following his orders and in preventing the execution of his will. It is not licit to Judge him, to punish him, or to depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior."

    ~St. Robert Bellarmine
    De Romano Pontifice, Lib.II, c.29


    Offline happenby

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    Re: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
    « Reply #5 on: June 01, 2018, 08:27:51 AM »
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  • Oh boy. :facepalm: :incense: :pray:





    Offline Neil Obstat

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    Re: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
    « Reply #6 on: June 01, 2018, 10:11:18 PM »
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  • What point are you trying to make, exactly, by showing the (heretical) Episcopalian church prayers which honor Copernicus and Kepler?

    Are you perhaps thinking of switching your religious affiliation to that which honors Copernicus and Kepler?
    .
    If someone had told me that the Episcopalians had this liturgy in use and this "Feast Day" on their calendar, I would not have believed it. So I posted it here FYI. These two men were obviously not Episcopalians. So why would they be on their calendar like this, as of 2009, no less? ("This Commemoration adopted provisionally at General Convention 2009.")
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    Apparently the Episcopalians have something in common with the Eastern Orthodox -- namely that they have no way of pronouncing someone a "Saint" as we do in the Roman Catholic Church. (Recent bad examples not withstanding). But in the former's case, that doesn't seem to stop them from having "Feast Days" for individuals they deem deserving of same but for reasons unspecified. Or, is being a "key figure in the scientific revolution" or "displacing the earth in the center of the universe" a good enough reason to hold a Feast Day?
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    I'm surprised no one has asked a particular question, however.
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