The "Big Bang" theory? It is old of 800 years! Mathematical Modelling of the 13th Century...

reply to post by Arken

Where did you find this?

It's well known. Here's Wikipedia:

The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. Luigi Firpo lists these charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition:

1. holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers;
   
   
2. holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation;
   
   
3. holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ;
   
   
4. holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus;
   
   
5. holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass;
   
   
6. claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;
   
   
7. believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes;
   
   
8. dealing in magics and divination.

The people who burnt him offer some further details.

After some time spent in literary activity at Frankfort, he went, in 1591, to Venice at the invitation of Mocenigo, who professed to be interested in his system of memory-training. Failing to obtain from Bruno the secret of his "natural magic", Mocenigo denounced him to the Inquisition. Bruno was arrested, and in his trial before the Venetian inquisitors first took refuge in the principle of "two-fold truth", saying that the errors imputed to him were held by him "as a philosopher, and not as an honest Christian"; later, however, he solemnly abjured all his errors and doubts in the matter of Catholic doctrine and practice...

In the spring of 1599, the trial was begun before a commission of the Roman Inquisition, and, after the accused had been granted several terms of respite in which to retract his errors, he was finally condemned (January, 1600), handed over to the secular power (8 February), and burned at the stake in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome (17 February). Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc. The Catholic Encyclopaedia

And thank you, Arken, for posting — albeit inadvertently — a topic of genuine interest to people other than New Agers and conspiracy theorists.

Astyanax
reply to post by bismarket

 

Actually, it translates as Richard the Bigheaded (or more broadly, as Richard the Fathead).

By the way, the OP paper is an elaborate scholarly joke. It is in no way intended to imply that Grosseteste's model of the origin of the cosmos is a truthful scientific depiction. It isn't. What the authors have done is work out the mathematical description of an imaginary universe that behaves according to Grosseteste's model. They certainly don't mean to suggest that the real universe originated in this way.

Anyone who doesn't believe me can read the paper and see for themselves.

Even the abstract didn't sound much like big bang or multiverse theory to me, but yes it's even more obvious once you start reading the paper that it's a very artificial construction and not intended to be taken too seriously.

I've seen a lot of other fake science jokes posted on the internet lately (most not quite as elaborate as this one), and I have no idea how scientifically illiterate people can sort out the jokes from the real science. Some people think that Marko Rodin's aetheric harmonic frequency based flux thruster atom pulsar electrical venturi space-time implosion field generator coil is a real scientific concept based on valid mathematics that can create unlimited energy and cure all disease. Just the name and the claims for what it can do sound like a joke to me, but apparently he was serious (and delusional).

The truth is, some of the science jokes don't come up with made up names as good as Rodin's, so it's nice to see that Bower et al made quite an elaborate joke in this case, good enough to give some pseudoscientists a run for their money.

reply to post by Astyanax


Where does it say that Bruno advocated Paganism? Did he worship any of the old gods, or nature? You have to remember that the medieval Church will call heresy or sorcery anything that goes against their dogma, be it science, mysticism, unorthodox views, etc.

Newton was also dabbled in mysticism and alchemy.

reply to post by wildespace

Where does it say that Bruno advocated Paganism?

Here, and elsewhere.

Bruno was no hero of science, my friend. He was a typical mediaeval magician.

As for Newton, he would certainly have been burned if he had lived at the same time as Bruno. However, he was born a hundred years later, after the Reformation, in England — where he was safe from the Inquisition.

reply to post by Astyanax


Thank you, I stand corrected.

It's interesting to note that medieval science took place in the Christian and Islamic world, by religious people. I guess that at the time, science was all about trying to understand God's creation. But it's still kinda weird, and flies in the face of argument that religion is anti-science. (I'm not religious myself, just making an observation). Great advances in astronomy came about as the result of Protestant movement, such as Kepler's theories. www.adherents.com...

reply to post by wildespace


In those days, if you had any taste for the intellectual life, it was the Church for you. You couldn't scratch that itch anywhere else, and life in the secular world must have been murder on intellectuals.

It wasn't so different in Newton's time either; the principal output of Cambridge, where he was first a student and then Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, was clergymen. It was still the same, come to that, when Charles Darwin studied there in the early 1800s.

Ah yes, the Big Bang and expansion of the universe theory, just a whole lot of "hot air" in my opinion.

A suppose that with such a theory the saying, "Where ever you go, there you are" rings true.

Then there is the pulsating universe theory with the eventual contraction. What a bummer theory, "gravity really gets me down".

I like the Big Bang Theory TV show, but as much as I like the Sheldon character, they should all kill him in a rage fueled orgy of death. Better yet, get him to agree to some bizarre experiment that ends up making him socially cool in a Jeckle/Hyde sort of way.

MichiganSwampBuck
Ah yes, the Big Bang and expansion of the universe theory, just a whole lot of "hot air" in my opinion.

If you can come up with a better theory, which explains the majority of what we observe in the universe and is continuously supported by new evidence, then let us hear it.

wildespace

MichiganSwampBuck
Ah yes, the Big Bang and expansion of the universe theory, just a whole lot of "hot air" in my opinion.

If you can come up with a better theory, which explains the majority of what we observe in the universe and is continuously supported by new evidence, then let us hear it.

Wild Space, you're taking me much too literally - hot air expands, like the big bang, it was a joke son! A pun more or less.

Personally I like the ether theory of space or the harmony of the spheres - great stuff in my opinion, but I can believe the big bang and expansion theories, esp. over the steady-state universe theory.

I had a couple of classes up to the university, of course the theories have changed somewhat since then. It was great inspiration for an arts major, but cosmology wasn't any requirement for me, just an interest.