Today I learned that Giordano Bruno was a spy. He lived in London for two years and pal'ed around with "Father of Science" Sir Bacon's buddies Phillip Sydney and Fulke Greville and worked for Waslingham according to this Yale University Press book. (no recorded meetings with Bacon but there's no doubt it happened). Bacon was 23-25 at the time and in London. Bacon was also a spy. Well everybody was in some sense, but Bacon worked with Walsingham as did his brother his whole life. The espionage of science and the science of espionage.
A professional spy/scientist was at the first meetings of the Royal Society. He's also the first known initiate of Freemasonry. A guy named Sir Robert Moray
Thanks for the new blog! University physics now feels like a step on a career ladder. Challenging but soulless.
Regarding the discussion about the size of the universe, I wonder if that has a practical application. How could we perceive the difference between infinite and "sufficiently large"?
I read Bruno's "On the Shadows of the Ideas" translated by John Michael Greer. Rather above my head. I recognize the competitive tone, where Bruno ridicules others.
From Wikipedia on Cosmological principle: "In modern physical cosmology, the cosmological principle is the notion that the spatial distribution of matter in the universe is equally distributed and isotropic when viewed on a large enough scale." "Cosmologists agree that in accordance with observations of distant galaxies, a universe must be non-static if it follows the cosmological principle."
But there is no reason whatsoever to believe that matter is equally distributed and isotropic. Nowhere in our observations, with the finest microscopes or telescopes, does this appear to be the case. So there is no reason whatsoever to assume that the universe is non-static, with, for example, a Big Bang.
From Wikipedia on Olbers's Paradox: "The darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe."
Once again, this conflict only occurs under the assumption of a homogeneous universe, which, as I wrote above, in no way corresponds to our observations.
I'm not so sure. This sounds to me like Kepler's reaction to the discovery of new stars (not Jupiter's first four moons) by Galileo. Kepler insisted that the new stars were not further away, just less bright. See my previous post "Johannes Kepler Views an Infinite Universe with Horror".
Further away stars/galaxies would be dimmer and smaller angular wise. However, there would be more of them unless the density of stars drops the further you get from Earth. A 1/r^2 phenomenon cancelled by an r^2 phenomenon.
(And, of course, in the real world we have the red shift, which means that either the universe is expanding or photons inherently lose energy over distance.)
Today I learned that Giordano Bruno was a spy. He lived in London for two years and pal'ed around with "Father of Science" Sir Bacon's buddies Phillip Sydney and Fulke Greville and worked for Waslingham according to this Yale University Press book. (no recorded meetings with Bacon but there's no doubt it happened). Bacon was 23-25 at the time and in London. Bacon was also a spy. Well everybody was in some sense, but Bacon worked with Walsingham as did his brother his whole life. The espionage of science and the science of espionage.
A professional spy/scientist was at the first meetings of the Royal Society. He's also the first known initiate of Freemasonry. A guy named Sir Robert Moray
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Giordano-Bruno-Embassy-Affair-Yale/dp/0300094515
Curiouser and curiouser. It was a time of nearly unmatched genius. Athens 300 BCish, Rome Oish, Florence 1400ish, London 1600ish.
Wish I had time to read all these posts man! They look great!
Fascinating. Bruno was certainly a complex figure.
I think it was Humboldt who wrote in his Cosmos, that the universe is expanding at the same rate, as the rate we improve and perfect our telescopes.
really good read ty
The language is so modern. Could Italian have been so advanced? Must be the translation.
Remarkable stuff. Amazing. I read the Yates book on Bruno many years ago and I left feeling like I had
No idea what Bruno really believed (beyond a deep love of ancient Egyptian religion- which seemed kind of absurd)
You might enjoy the following post: Italo Calvino Praises Galileo's Prose
(https://johnplaice.substack.com/p/italo-calvino-praises-galileos-prose)
Thanks for the new blog! University physics now feels like a step on a career ladder. Challenging but soulless.
Regarding the discussion about the size of the universe, I wonder if that has a practical application. How could we perceive the difference between infinite and "sufficiently large"?
I read Bruno's "On the Shadows of the Ideas" translated by John Michael Greer. Rather above my head. I recognize the competitive tone, where Bruno ridicules others.
From Wikipedia on Cosmological principle: "In modern physical cosmology, the cosmological principle is the notion that the spatial distribution of matter in the universe is equally distributed and isotropic when viewed on a large enough scale." "Cosmologists agree that in accordance with observations of distant galaxies, a universe must be non-static if it follows the cosmological principle."
But there is no reason whatsoever to believe that matter is equally distributed and isotropic. Nowhere in our observations, with the finest microscopes or telescopes, does this appear to be the case. So there is no reason whatsoever to assume that the universe is non-static, with, for example, a Big Bang.
From Wikipedia on Olbers's Paradox: "The darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe."
Once again, this conflict only occurs under the assumption of a homogeneous universe, which, as I wrote above, in no way corresponds to our observations.
Olber's Paradox remains even with a lumpy distribution. To have dark areas you need dark tunnels from Earth to infinity.
I'm not so sure. This sounds to me like Kepler's reaction to the discovery of new stars (not Jupiter's first four moons) by Galileo. Kepler insisted that the new stars were not further away, just less bright. See my previous post "Johannes Kepler Views an Infinite Universe with Horror".
https://johnplaice.substack.com/p/johannes-kepler-views-an-infinite
Further away stars/galaxies would be dimmer and smaller angular wise. However, there would be more of them unless the density of stars drops the further you get from Earth. A 1/r^2 phenomenon cancelled by an r^2 phenomenon.
(And, of course, in the real world we have the red shift, which means that either the universe is expanding or photons inherently lose energy over distance.)
The red shift is unlikely to be extrinsic, but, rather, intrinsic. This follows from the work of Halton Arp. I introduced Arp here:
https://johnplaice.substack.com/i/154139559/halton-arp-makes-inconvenient-discoveries-looking-through-telescopes
On the light issue, I intend to have a closer look at this when I get around to studying in detail 19th and 20th century science.