scholarly journals Zaccaria Lilio and the shape of the earth: A brief response to Allegro’s “Flat earth science”

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Philipp E. Nothaft
Keyword(s):  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Spherical Earth ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
The Universe

This is a response to James J. Allegro’s article “The Bottom of the Universe: Flat Earth Science in the Age of Encounter,” published in Volume 55, Number 1, of this journal. Against the solid consensus of modern scholars, Allegro contends that the decades around 1500 saw a resurgence of popular and learned doubts about the existence of a southern hemisphere and the concept of a spherical earth more generally. It can be shown that a substantial part of Allegro’s argument rests on an erroneous reading of his main textual witness, Zaccaria Lilio’s Contra Antipodes (1496), and on a failure adequately to place this source in the context of the cosmographical debate of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Once this context is taken into account, the notion that Lilio was a flat-earther falls flat.

The bottom of the universe: Flat earth science in the Age of Encounter

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J Allegro
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Earth Model ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Spherical Earth ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
European Thought ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Empirical Stance

This essay challenges the dominance of the spherical earth model in fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century Western European thought. It examines parallel strains of Latin and vernacular writing that cast doubt on the existence of the southern hemisphere. Three factors shaped the alternate accounts of the earth as a plane and disk put forward by these sources: (1) the unsettling effects of maritime expansion on scientific thought; (2) the revival of interest in early Christian criticism of the spherical earth; and (3) a rigid empirical stance toward entities too large to observe in their entirety, including the earth. Criticism of the spherical earth model faded in the decades after Magellan’s crew returned from circuiting the earth in 1522.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Geographical aspects of the diffusion of passive houses

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Kozma ◽  
E. Molnár ◽  
K. Czimre ◽  
J. Pénzes
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Renewable Energy Resources ◽  
Passive House ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Passive Houses ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Geographical Locations ◽  
Over Time

Abstract In our days, energy issues belong to the most important problems facing the Earth and the solution may be expected partly from decreasing the amount of the energy used and partly from the increased utilisation of renewable energy resources. A substantial part of energy consumption is related to buildings and includes, inter alia, the use for cooling/heating, lighting and cooking purposes. In the view of the above, special attention has been paid to minimising the energy consumption of buildings since the late 1980s. Within the framework of that, the passive house was created, a building in which the thermal comfort can be achieved solely by postheating or postcooling of the fresh air mass without a need for recirculated air. The aim of the paper is to study the changes in the construction of passive houses over time. In addition, the differences between the geographical locations and the observable peculiarities with regard to the individual building types are also presented.

An Interview with the Physicist that Her Head in the Universe and Both Feet on the Earth

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Additional Dimension ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
The Universe

Put simply, Lisa Randall’s job is to figure out how the universe works, and what it’s made of. Her contributions to theoretical particle physics include two models of space-time that bear her name. The first Randall–Sundrum model addressed a problem with the Standard Model of the universe, and the second concerned the possibility of a warped additional dimension of space. In this work, we caught up with Randall to talk about why she chose a career in physics, where she finds inspiration, and what advice she’d offer budding physicists. This article has been edited for clarity. My favourite quote in this interview is, “Figure out what you enjoy, what your talents are, and what you’re most curious to learn about.” If you insterest in her work, you can contact her on Twitter @lirarandall.

An Interview with the Physicist that Her Head in the Universe and Both Feet on the Earth

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Additional Dimension ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Standard Model ◽  
The Universe

Put simply, Lisa Randall’s job is to figure out how the universe works, and what it’s made of. Her contributions to theoretical particle physics include two models of space-time that bear her name. The first Randall–Sundrum model addressed a problem with the Standard Model of the universe, and the second concerned the possibility of a warped additional dimension of space. In this work, we caught up with Randall to talk about why she chose a career in physics, where she finds inspiration, and what advice she’d offer budding physicists. This article has been edited for clarity. My favourite quote in this interview is, “Figure out what you enjoy, what your talents are, and what you’re most curious to learn about.” If you insterest in her work, you can contact her on Twitter @lirarandall.

Much Ado about (Practically) Nothing

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Energy Source ◽  
Atomic Nucleus ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Rare Gases ◽  
Important Work ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Life On Mars ◽  
The Universe

There are eight columns in the Periodic Table. The eighth column is comprised of the rare gases, so-called because they are the rarest elements on earth. They are also called the inert or noble gases because, like nobility, they do no work. They are colorless, odorless, invisible gases which do not react with anything, and were thought to be unimportant until the early 1960s. Starting in that era, David Fisher has spent roughly fifty years doing research on these gases, publishing nearly a hundred papers in the scientific journals, applying them to problems in geophysics and cosmochemistry, and learning how other scientists have utilized them to change our ideas about the universe, the sun, and our own planet. Much Ado about (Practically) Nothing will cover this spectrum of ideas, interspersed with the author's own work which will serve to introduce each gas and the important work others have done with them. The rare gases have participated in a wide range of scientific advances-even revolutions-but no book has ever recorded the entire story. Fisher will range from the intricacies of the atomic nucleus and the tiniest of elementary particles, the neutrino, to the energy source of the stars; from the age of the earth to its future energies; from life on Mars to cancer here on earth. A whole panoply that has never before been told as an entity.

scholarly journals Children’s Astronomy. Development of the Shape of the Earth Concept in Polish Children between 5 and 10 Years of Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Jan Amos Jelinek
Keyword(s):  
Mental Model ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Test Results ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Spherical Earth ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level ◽  
Cognitive Problems ◽  
Teaching Situations ◽  
Model Approach

The Earth’s shape concept develops as consecutive cognitive problems (e.g., the location of people and trees on the spherical Earth) are gradually resolved. Establishing the order of problem solving may be important for the organisation of teaching situations. This study attempted to determine the sequence of problems to be resolved based on tasks included in the EARTH2 test. The study covered a group of 444 children between 5 and 10 years of age. It captured the order in which children solve cognitive problems on the way to constructing a science-like concept. The test results were compared with previous studies. The importance of cultural influences connected to significant differences (24%) in test results was emphasised. Attention was drawn to the problem of the consistency of the mental model approach highlighted in the literature. The analysis of the individual sets of answers provided a high level of consistency of indications referring to the same model (36%), emphasising the importance of the concept of mental models.

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