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This book presents a comprehensive history of the many contributions the Jesuits made to science from their founding to the present. It also links the Jesuits dedication to science with their specific spirituality which tries to find God in all things. The book begins with Christopher Clavius, professor of mathematics in the Roman College between 1567 and 1595, the initiator of this tradition. It covers Jesuits scientific contributions in mathematics, astronomy, physics and cartography up until the suppression of the order by the Pope in 1773. Next, the book details the scientific work the Jesuits pursued after their restoration in 1814. It examines the establishment of a network of observat...
Winner of the 2021 Donald E. Osterbrock Book Prize for Historical Astronomy In Decoding the Stars, Ileana Chinnici offers an account of the life of the Jesuit scientist Angelo Secchi (1818-1878). In addition to providing an invaluable account of Secchi’s life and work—something that has been sorely lacking in the English-language scholarship—this biography will be especially stimulating for those interested in the evolution of astrophysics as a discipline from the nineteenth century onward. Despite his eclecticism, reminiscent of the natural philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Secchi was in many ways a very modern scientist: open to innovation and cooperation, and a promoter of popularization and citizen science. Secchi also appears fully inserted in the cultural context of his time: he participated in philosophical and scientific debates, spread new theories and ideas, but also suffered the consequences of political events that marked those years and impacted on his life and activities.
The year 2011 marked the 80th anniversary of Georges Lemaître’s primeval atom model of the universe, forerunner of the modern day Big Bang theory. Prompted by this momentous anniversary the Royal Astronomical Society decided to publish a volume of essays on the life, work and faith of this great cosmologist, who was also a Roman Catholic priest. The papers presented in this book examine in detail the historical, cosmological, philosophical and theological issues surrounding the development of the Big Bang theory from its beginnings in the pioneering work of Lemaître through to the modern day. This book offers the best account in English of Lemaître’s life and work. It will be appreciated by professionals and graduate students interested in the history of cosmology.
This book comprises a fascinating collection of contributions on the Merz telescopes in Italy that collectively offer the first survey on historical large refracting telescopes in the country, drawing on original documents and photographs. It opens with a general introduction on the importance of Merz telescopes in the history of astronomy and analyses of the local and international contexts in which the telescopes were made. After examination of an example of the interaction between the maker and the astronomer in the construction and maintenance of these refractors, the history of the Merz telescopes at the main Italian observatories in the nineteenth century is described in detail. Expert testimony is also provided on how these telescopes were successfully used until the second half of the twentieth century for research purposes, thus proving their excellent optical qualities.
According to legend, the Virgin Mary entrusted three Russian children with secrets that could spell the end of life on Earth. As the Iron Curtain crumbles, powerful forces struggle for the very souls of humanity. Only one man holds all the keys to humanity's salvation, but can one American priest defeat both the KGB and the agents of Satan?
In 1982 Olaf Pedersen gave a series of lectures at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and in 1988 at Cambridge University. In the course of those lectures he developed The Two Books: Historical Notes on Some Interactions between Natural Science and Theology. After Pedersen's death in 1997, the work was prepared for publication, making available in English as complete and accurate a version as possible of Pedersen's monumental work. There is a lingering impression that the field of natural science and theology is new and that, except for such passing episodes as those associated with such figures as Galileo Galilei, Giordano Bruno, and Charles Darwin, there is little or no historical continuity to the science-religion dialogue. This book by Olaf Pedersen definitively corrects that impression by tracing with scholarly precision the historical roots from pre-Socratic times to today's pursuit of the interactions between the natural sciences and religion. In doing so it makes a unique and important contribution to the field.