Giordano Bruno
Every time we, in the past 500 years, thought we enjoyed a unique
cosmic
situation, we were wrong. (1)
The sun did not revolve around the earth which Copernicus demonstrated
in
his treatise 'On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres' published in
1543
on the day he died.
The earth did rotate - like the other planets orbiting in ellipses
around
the sun as Galileo demonstrated in 'Dialogue on the Two Chief World
Systems'
published in 1632.
And when Galileo as the first applied the telescope to study the sky,
he
observed that the nebulous band of the Milky Way was resolved into a
myriad
of stars. (2) Six months after the publication of Galileo's book, he
was
summoned to Rome to face the Catholic Inquisition and there, on
account of
his defence of Copernicanism, he was found guilty of heresy and had to
remain under house arrest for the rest of his life.
This was a trifle, however, compared to the fate the Catholic Church
meted
out to Giordano Bruno who in 'On the Infinite Universe and Worlds' in
1584
aired the intuition that: "Innumerable suns exist; innumerable earths
revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the seven
planets
revolve around our sun. Living beings inhabit these worlds". (3) Faced
with
such a dangerous heresy, the spiritual guide of Christianity, the
Catholic
Church, of course had to intervene and Giordano Bruno was duly
condemned to
the stake. Before dying in this extremely painful way, a nail was
hammered
through his tongue. Since this misdeed, and with its subsequent
saveage
determination to kill important scientific advances, it seems fair to
ask
whether the Catholic Church is entitled to retain possession of its -
unique - leading position ?
The world picture changed radically during the European Renaissance.
But it
is first at the approaching encounter with the planetary candidates
for
intelligent life in solar systems near to us (4) that we, finally,
understand the full extent of the intellectual achievement of European
astronomers and philosophers in this era.
Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo reached full recognition a few decades
after
their death for their clear and rather precise description of our
solar
system.
Measurement, observation, and rational, unprejudiced thought were
instrumental in this endeavour. The next, natural step was to attempt
to
determine the composition and structure of the cosmos outside our
solar
system. Here observation and measurement with the primitive
instruments of
that time were immediately of little use, which did not make Giordano
Bruno
desist from conjecturing about and visualizing the rest of the
Universe,
what the self-opinionated Catholic Church and numerous scholars and
astronomers otherwise, with withering sarcasm, even to this day,
thought he
should.
Giordano Bruno's affiliation to the hermetic tradition has often been
held
up against him (5, 6), but in reality almost all Renaissance
astronomers, incl. Kepler and my superstitious compatriot Tycho Brahe
were fascinated by spiritual currents that were certainly not pervaded
by rational thought.
The long-drawn-out search to find fault with Giordano Bruno's
achievement
includes blaming Bruno for not having understood the Copernican
heliocentric model properly.
The truth is, however, that the implications of the Copernican model
had escaped most astronomers just after the publication of De
Revolutionibus. (7)
Giordano Bruno was the first serious student in the Renaissance of the
cosmology of Lucretius (99-55 B.C.). Lucretius asserted that the
Universe was infinite. (8) That Bruno had the courage to publish On
the Infinite Universe and Worlds conjecturing that the Universe must
contain a multitude of such comparatively simple structures as solar
systems and that some of the planets
of the solar systems are due to be habitated by humans ought to
bring him
the credit which is his due - at 400 years' delay.
In 2001, Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, stated: "The
concept of 'a plurality of inhabited worlds' has, ever since (Bruno)
had surprisingly sustained support." (9) Small wonder,today we have to
re-state the achievement of the scholars of the Renaissance as
follows: on the
basis of observation and measurement of relations within our solar
system -
a n d i n t u i t i o n a n d c o n j e c t u r e u n s t o
p p a b l y t r a n s g r e s s i n g i t s b o r d e r s, o n
c e
t h e i d e a t h a t t h e e a r t h w a s n o t t h e
c e n t r e o f t h e w o r l d h a d t a k e n r o o
t, they arrived at a vision of our habitated sun system as one out of
many in
the cosmos.
This concept will, to all appearances, be confirmed in this or the
next decade.
Steen Hjortsø
References:
1. Shostak, Seth: Is there other Intelligent Life in the Universe ?
Prospect, June 2000.
2. Chapman, Robert D.: Discovering Astronomy. San Francisco: W.H.
Freeman,
1978.
3. Astrobiology's Most Wanted. A failure to recant resulted in the
strange
case of Giordano Bruno.
http://www.science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast21_may99_2.htm
4. Lunine, Jonathan I.: In search of planets and life around other
stars.
PNAS Online, Vol. 96, Issue 10, May 11, 1999.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/10/5353
5. Goldish, Matt: Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets,
Magicians, and
Rabbis. Journal of the History of Philosophy. Berkeley, October 1999.
6. Gatti, Hilary: The State of Giordano Bruno Studies at the End of
the
Four-Hundreth Centenary of the Philospher's Death. Renaissance
Quarterly,
Spring 2001.
7. Zeilik, Michael: Astronomy. The Evolving Universe. 9th ed..
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002.
8. Koyré, Alexandre: Von der geschlossenen Welt zum unendlichen
Universum.
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980.
9. Rees, Martin: Our Cosmic Habitat. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
2001.