Video of the Inverness book launch event for Bruce Ritchie, James Clerk Maxwell: Faith, Church and Physics (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 2024); #2024-br-1.
My video recommendation (above). For those who want more, below is a longer video review (21 mins). But watch Ritchie’s lecture from the book launch first!
Starstruck Tonight, draft version (1 hr, 5 mins)
Thursday night, April 27, at 6pm, Candace and I presented a virtual program for the Pioneer Library network. Here’s the event page. My thanks to Pioneer Library and Librarian Catherine Wahpeconiah for inviting us and for all the effort in hosting the event as part of spring series on astronomy.
The official title I turned in, back when it was arranged, was “Constellations: Merging Art and Science.” While creating it, I added “Starstruck Tonight” to the title, because I drew upon some scripts I used for two planetarium shows back in the 1990’s. The presentation feels to me like a fusion between a planetarium show and a tour of the History of Science Collections.
On the Vimeo page for the draft video, the caption has links to jump to any section.
I’ll post a link here when the improved version as given is posted on the Pioneer Library website. It’s also significantly shorter!
I’m making the presentation available under a Creative Commons license, with attribution (CC-by). All images from books are courtesy History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries.
Some of the links mentioned in the presentation are:
IEEE VIS, the premier international conference on visualization and visual analytics, is bringing 1100 people to Oklahoma City this week either in-person or virtually. OU Professor David Ebert is one of the organizers of the conference. David is Gallogly Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Computer Science (CS); Associate Vice President of Research and Partnerships; and Director, Data Institute for Societal Challenges (DISC).
An OU Open House on Thursday showcased data science activities and research from DISC and other centers on campus including the History of Science Collections.
I thank David for inviting me to present the capstone, which I’ve entitled: “Galileo’s Telescopic Discoveries: Thinking Visually in the History of Science.” Here’s the program and the capstone description from the conference website.
Title
Galileo’s Telescopic Discoveries: Thinking Visually in the History of Science
Abstract
In the Starry Messenger (1610), Galileo reported his discovery of four satellites of Jupiter and mountains on the Moon. These sensational telescopic discoveries were made possible by Galileo’s training and experience in Renaissance art. Galileo’s scientific discoveries occurred in the context of a specific artistic culture which fostered visual thinking by means of sophisticated mathematical techniques for drawing with linear perspective and handling light and shadow. When Galileo peered through his telescope and discovered mountains on the Moon, he did so because he was seeing with the eyes of an artist. Contemporaries without artistic training in visual thinking were not able to see what Galileo saw; they were able to look but not to see.
Related links:
This October 4-6, Oklahoma City will welcome a firmament of stellar speakers and a Milky Way of radiant participants to the Painters, Prophets, Poets conference, subtitled “Imagining New Creation Together.”
Hosted by Travis Lowe and Hannah Anderson, speakers are Malcolm Guite, Makoto Fujimura, Haejin Shim Fujimura, Beth Moore, and Miroslav Volf. Around 400 people have registered from 30 states plus Canada. Most of the top 10 states lie between the Rockies and the Appalachians. An explicit goal is to encourage the growth of collaborative communities in the central plains.
Learn more and follow conference updates at Facebook and Instagram.
After registration, conference participants hear about various auxiliary events. One of those is touring the OU History of Science Collections…
Invitation:
Today, you are a researcher. This is a privilege and a dare.
Beware, the books will change you. Let him who has ears to hear…
I pray you will find one that speaks to you.
One that rouses your imagination like the Oklahoma winds.
One that strengthens you with the comfort of the companionship of a true friend.
Enter in hope, all ye who enter here.
Experiencing the History of Science Collections as part of this conference will not be like visiting a museum; our conversation together will be much more personal than that. Come with your heart open to allow the beauty of these physical traces to draw you into the invisible reality of the communion of the saints, the communities of scientists, artists, and lovers of creation who have gone before. Bring your journal notebook (pencils good, but no pens). Phone photos welcome. Space is limited. Register first, then you can sign up. With apologies, no rain checks; it is not available on other dates.
Recommendation: Download a copy before the tour, and read the first few pages to orient you to the History of Science Collections and what we’ll be doing. First we’ll enjoy a whirlwind tour; then after that you can go back and look at one or two books with greater care and attention (consulting the meditations if you wish just for those select items). This PDF contains all the meditations that are set next to the books during the tour, but don’t try to read them all at once.
In the weeks after the tour, read the meditations at leisure, like a book of poems, selectively, and as you have time to inwardly digest them.**
Then, as the desire to know and the love of understanding wells up as courage within you, come back, register as a researcher, and ask to see the original books in the Reading Room!
At the conference I look forward to meeting you in person. Before then, I hope to read your introduction on the private Facebook group. See you soon… I can’t wait!
** Note: The meditations are not written to be read in an informational mode like one might employ to scan an article at Wikipedia. They are not what Siri might speak back if you asked her for a caption. Read them like poems. Within the frame of a given form or structure the creativity of a poem emerges; it is the same for these reflections. Think of the materiality of the books and historical knowledge of the events as analogous to the form or structure of a poem. While writing within that frame to the best of my ability, these are meditations, interpretations, my gifts of gratitude to the speakers, organizers, and participants of this conference. Tip: You may find it helpful to read them aloud.
PS: Yes, you are welcome to come back as a researcher. You do not need to be an academic scholar. There is a registration process. After that, the books will be brought to you in the Reading Room (max of five at a time). It’s good to request the books in advance so they can be pulled and waiting for you. All this is explained on the web page for the History of Science Collections. The information at the top of each page in the reflections PDF is sufficient to make a book request. Go to the University of Oklahoma Libraries website (libraries.ou.edu) and navigate to the page for the History of Science Collections. There you can register online, request the books you want to see ahead of time, and ask any questions you have for Collections staff. And then come and sit with the books.
Auxiliary educational resources for the weeks AFTER the tour:
If your time among the books on this visit prompts you to explore further, numerous excellent educational resources are available online and in your library and local bookstore. Depending on your interests, I’ll be happy to make some recommendations if you want to get in touch. To help you get started diving deeper into any of the topics raised by these books, the following educational resources of my own are keyed to the number of the book as indicated in the meditations PDF.
General resources:
None of my own educational resources above, including the meditations PDF, represent the University of Oklahoma. The views and interpretations expressed are all my own.
University web pages:
All rare book images in the meditations PDF are from the History of Science Collections and the Bizzell Bible Collection of the University of Oklahoma Libraries.
Plato, Diuus Plato (Venice, 1491), ed. Marsilio Ficino (“The Divine Plato”).
In his dialogue entitled The Timaeus, Plato taught that the cosmos is constructed from regular geometrical figures known as the Pythagorean solids.
Whenever one finds an emphasis upon mathematical demonstrations in science, one may credit Plato and the Pythagoreans. Alfred North Whitehead wrote that the history of philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. Some have said the same about the history of science.
This early edition of Plato’s works was edited by Marsilio Ficino, the leading scholar of the Italian Quattrocento (Renaissance). It includes Ficino’s own essays on theology and Platonic love. Under the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici, Ficino founded the Florentine Platonic Academy.
Leonard Digges, A Prognostication Everlasting of Right Good Effect…; Lately corrected and augmented by Thomas Digges his sonne (London, 1605)
This Sun-centered cosmic section represents the first published defense of Copernicus in England, and it was printed in a work of meteorology. The Earth carries its meteorological regions of water, air and fire along with it, as a single “globe of mortalitye.” The fixed stars, each far larger than the Sun, extend “infinitely up” in a “Pallace of Foelicitye.”
Leonard Digges wrote this prognostication in a genre known as “astro-meteorology.” Astro-meteorologies were early modern versions of The Farmer’s Almanac. They attempted to provide annual guidance for agricultural activities and other events on the basis of meteorological and astronomical patterns.
Thomas, his son, published an updated edition in which he substituted the Copernican system for his father’s reliance upon the Ptolemaic. An appendix includes the first English translation of Book 1 of Copernicus’ On the Revolutions.
Geneva Bible (1560)
The Geneva Bible was the first lay study Bible, written in the vernacular, hand-sized, portable, affordable, and designed with cross-references and explanatory notes for self-study. It was the Bible of Shakespeare, of the Puritans, of settlers in the colonies of New England, and of Scotland. The popularity of the Geneva Bible is evident in the way its verse divisions have endured to this day.
The Printing Revolution
The first thing one notices about the Geneva Bible is the small size: it fits in your hand. Second, it’s written not in Latin, but in English. Its design is both portable and accessible for the lay reader.
The title page indicates that it is translated not from Latin but from the original languages, reflecting up-to-date scholarship, with “most profitable annotations upon all the hard places.”
Contrast the readable typeface of this Bible to the gothic fonts of the other Bibles. Its clear, readable type appealed to lay readers. In contrast to large altar Bibles like Gutenberg’s or Koberger’s, the small typeface made the Geneva Bible portable and affordable. The Geneva Bible was made not to sit on an altar, but to be taken in hand and read, and carried to church and to the pub.
On a typical page one might notice introductory comments at the beginning of any biblical book. The text is broken up by numbered verses. These are the first verse divisions to appear in an English Bible. The popularity of the Geneva Bible is reflected in the fact that its verse divisions endure; they’re the ones used today.
Marginal explanations on all the “hard places” didn’t hesitate to promote the theology of the Protestant Reformation.
The verse divisions and cross-references encouraged a profound change in the act of reading. Readers began to pay less attention to the art of storytelling, reading from a single unbroken text, and to place more emphasis on comparing and contrasting short passages from diverse contexts, moving back and forth between different chapters and verses at will.
Across Europe, vernacular publications energized emerging nationalist and religious movements. The Protestant Reformation, like the “Scientific Revolution,” would hardly be conceivable apart from printing. Many therefore suggest that the printing press then caused greater cultural changes in Europe than the computer has yet wrought in ours, until we see political transformation on a super-continental or global scale equivalent to the Reformation.
For all these reasons, the Geneva Bible represents the subversive potential of the Printing Revolution. Lay study of the Geneva Bible, often in small groups at local pubs, helps explain why English translations of the Bible vexed Henry VIII. The king lamented that ordinary peasants, instead of accepting what they were taught by bishops, now disputed, rhymed, sang and jangled the scripture in every alehouse and tavern across the land.
Biblical Interpretation
Employing the principle of accommodation, the Reformer Jean Calvin elsewhere commented on Psalm 78:65, which depicts God as a drunken man: “The figure of a drunken man may seem somewhat harsh, but the propriety of using it will appear when we consider that it is employed in accommodation to the stupidity of the people. Had they been of a pure and clear understanding, God would not have transformed himself and assumed a character foreign to his own.”
Galileo, Dialogo sopra i Due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo (Florence, 1632)
This is Galileo’s witty and entertaining dialogue in defense of Copernicus. In the frontispiece, Aristotle and Ptolemy hold an Earth-centered armillary sphere (left). Copernicus holds a Sun-centered model of the universe (right). Just two systems appear in the Dialogo; Galileo nowhere mentions the Tychonic system then favored by most astronomers.
Galileo inserted statements about the hypothetical character of the work in the preface and conclusion. Nevertheless, the book as a whole was anything but even-handed, contrary to instructions issued to Galileo in 1616. Once published, Urban VIII gave orders for the Dialogo to be recalled and summoned Galileo to Rome for trial.
This copy is one of four first editions of Galileo held by OU which contain Galileo’s own handwriting.
– Salviati, named for a close friend of Galileo’s, defends the Copernican system with scientific brilliance and legendary wit. Master of both quantitative argument and experimental evidence, Salviati always seems ten steps ahead of anyone else. Never at a loss for words, Salviati clearly directs the flow of conversation.
– Sagredo, named after another friend of Galileo’s, represents an open-minded reader. As an inquisitive and bright student, he is not intimidated by Salviati, but comes up with insightful questions. Sagredo is the man in the middle; he desires neither to discard traditional authorities nor to embrace novelties unless there is compelling evidence.
– Simplicio, named after an ancient Greek commentator on Aristotle, ineptly defends the Earth-centered system. Simplicio frequently admits that he doesn’t understand an argument, and his requests for additional explanations provide comic relief along the way.
Galileo placed greatest emphasis in this book upon an argument for Copernicanism from the ebb and flow of the tides. This argument was physical in nature, based on causal explanation, rather than mathematical. It was an attempt to achieve a level of certainty which had proven elusive for mathematical methods alone. Unfortunately, the argument was not persuasive, then or now.
Most astronomers at the time were neither Ptolemaic nor Copernican, so Galileo displayed some chutzpah in rigging the debate as an exclusive choice between only two of the contemporary systems (see Cosmological Systems, Part 1).
One page displays a new sentence by Simplicio, handwritten in the margin, to go before a long paragraph by Salviati. This sentence is included in the second edition. Here it is written in Galileo’s own hand.
Galileo, “The Ancient and Modern Doctrine of Holy Fathers,” in Mathematical Collections (London, 1661), ed. Thomas Salusbury
This volume contains the first English translations of any of Galileo’s works, including Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World, the book for which he was put on trial. It also includes the most important documents related to Scripture and Copernicanism, including Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (shown here); similar essays by Kepler and Foscarini, a Carmelite monk; and an excerpt from Diego de Zuniga’s commentary on Job.
The volume is charred and blackened around the edges. Many copies perished in the Great Fire of London in 1665.
This volume contains the first English editions of: Galileo’s Dialogo; Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina; Kepler’s discussion of interpreting Scripture; Diego de Zuñiga’s Copernican commentary on Job; the Letter of Foscarini, and the hydraulics of Castelli.
Note on the provenance of this copy: The inside end-paper bears the name of “Thomas Wo” at Cambridge. A survey of all those in Alumni Cambridiensis to 1751 with surnames beginning with “Wo” reveals that Thomas was not a common Christian name and provides only one candidate, Thomas Worlich, who entered Jesus College in 1700, migrated to Trinity, and graduated MA in 1708.
Galileo, Lettera Madama Cristina di Lorena (Milan, 1967)
Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina provides a modern example of the book arts. The outer case opens to show a smaller case, the size of a miniature version published a century ago. The 1967 edition fits entirely within the circumference of a nickel. A magnifying glass to read it is included in the smaller case, along with one of the plates used to print it. This is no. 27 of 100 copies.
The larger gilt-morocco book-shaped case contains, bound within it, a 75-page preface by Giuseppe Cantamessa which discusses the process of printing.
