Introduction: Why Water?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay J. Starkey
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Universe

This introduction presents the work’s larger argument that fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European sea voyages caused Europeans to re-examine why water did not flood the earth. This introduction also proposes that the topic of water allows for the investigation of several historiographical questions: how Europeans viewed the relationship between the natural, preternatural, and supernatural from the ancient period into the sixteenth century; how Europeans viewed God’s connection to the universe from the ancient period into the sixteenth century; and how these overseas voyages in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries influenced Europeans’ dependency on textual authorities for their worldviews. It also suggests that this study is of interest to those scholars working in blue cultural studies.

Machines

On Purpose ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Change ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Revolution

This chapter discusses the Scientific Revolution that is dated from the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, the work that put the sun rather than the earth at the center of the universe to Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687, the work that gave the causal underpinnings of the whole system as developed over the previous one hundred and fifty years. Historian Rupert Hall put his finger precisely on the real change that occurred in the revolution. It was not so much the physical theories, although these were massive and important. It was rather a change of metaphors or models—from that of an organism to that of a machine. By the sixteenth century, machines were becoming ever more common and ever more sophisticated. It was natural therefore for people to start thinking of the world—the universe—as a machine, especially since some of the most elaborate of the new machines were astronomical clocks that had the planets and the sun and moon moving through the heavens, not by human force but by predestined contraptions. In a word, by clockwork!

Everywhere in Our Sight

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
Physical World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Safe Harbor ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Stranger ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter focuses on the liturgy and psalm singing of a group of Dutch Reformed exiles known as the Stranger church, who found safe harbor under the leadership of Johannes a Lasco in London in the 1550s only to face expulsion after the accession of Mary I. By singing the metrical psalms of Jan Utenhove, the exiles envisioned a community that could be enacted in any place and redefined their relationship to a world in which they had no sanctioned place. Thus the Stranger church reimagined the entire earth as a place of exile and looked to heaven as their home when their bodies rose from the earth. The story of the Dutch Strangers thus separates belief from the political geography of sixteenth-century Europe, and it reveals how the turmoil of the era transformed the relationship between belief and the physical world.

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.

scholarly journals Knowing and doing in the sixteenth century: what were instruments for?

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIM BENNETT
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Online Database ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Mathematics ◽  
The Relationship

Despite recent work on scientific instruments by historians of science, the meeting ground between historians and curators of collections has been disappointingly narrow. This study offers, first, a characterization of sixteenth-century mathematical instruments, drawing on the work of curators, as represented by the online database Epact. An examination of the relationship between these instruments and the natural world suggests that the ‘theoric’, familiar from studies of the history of astronomy, has a wider relevance to the domain of practical mathematics. This outcome from a study of collections is then used in re-examining an established question in the history of science, the position of William Gilbert on the motion of the Earth.

Describing and Depicting Water in Cosmographical and Geographical Texts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay J. Starkey
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Spatial Relationships ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter investigates the relationship between water and the earth and the world’s landmasses and waterways described and depicted in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century cosmographical and geographical texts and their medieval predecessors. This chapter argues that many medieval authors claimed that there was more water than earth in the world and that this water was located especially in the southern hemisphere of the world, exposing the ecumene in the northern hemisphere. Sixteenthcentury authors of such texts argued for more land than water in the world and proposed different spatial relationships between waterways and landmasses than their predecessors had, but the maps that accompanied their texts show that they still tended to depict the southern hemisphere as especially water filled.

scholarly journals Destruksie ten minste tien maal beklemtoon – ’n interpretasie van 'Kraak die aardbol langs ’n naat' van Wilma Stockenström

Literator ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
B. Van der Westhuizen
Keyword(s):  
Language Usage ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Repeated Use ◽  
Micro Structures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Semantic Values ◽  
Syntactical Analysis

Destruction at least ten times emphasized – an interpretation of 'Kraak die aardbol langs ’n naat' ('Cracking the earth along the seam') by Wilma Stockenström In this article the value of syntactical analysis in the interpretation of a poem is investigated from the premise that emphasis can be effected inter alia in the following ways: (a) by contravening certain rules that apply in standard language usage in order to compose grammatical sentences, b) the exploitation of parallel syntactical structures, and c) the relationship between sentence unit and line, and line and/or stanza. These theoretical points of departure form the basis of the syntactical analysis of “Kraak die aardbol langs ’n naat” (Wilma Stockenström), in which there are numerous deviations from the expected, normal and usual ways of constructing sentences. It is by these means that the semantic values gain prominence: the attention is drawn to the deviating behaviour of mankind continuing to destruct the earth until nothing remains. It is evident that the repeated use of irony and the satirical tone of this poem also contribute to persuade the reader to behave in a way opposite to that depicted in the poem. In this way the value of a syntactical analysis of this poem is illustrated. By uncovering the micro-structures (syntactical units) within the (macro-) structure (the poem), underlying patterns and the place of humanity in the universe can be better understood. In this way the analysis of this poem is then linked to the field of ecocriticism.

Heavenly Bodies

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wothers
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Night Sky ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Over Time

We don’t know for sure where the names of the longest-known elements come from, but a connection was made early on between the most ancient metals and bodies visible in the heavens. Figure 1 shows an engraving from a seventeenth-century text with the title ‘The Seven Metals’ (translated from the Latin). It isn’t immediately obvious how the image is meant to depict seven metals until we explore the connections between alchemy and astronomy. However strange such associations seem to us now, we shall see that new elements named in the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries have had astronomical origins. We can’t properly understand why some of the more recent elements were named as they were without first understanding these earlier historical connections. As we look into the night sky, the distant stars remain in their same relative positions and seem to move gracefully together through the heavens. Of course, we now know that it is the spinning Earth that gives this illusion of movement. The imaginations of our ancestors joined the bright dots to pick out fanciful patterns such as the Dragon, the Dolphin, or the Great Bear—the latter being more often known today (with rather less imagination) as the Big Dipper, the Plough, or even the Big Saucepan. But, while these patterns, the constellations, remained unchanging over time, there were seven objects, or ‘heavenly bodies’, that seemed to move across the skies with a life of their own. They were given the name ‘planet’, which derives from the Greek word for ‘wanderer’ (‘planetes asteres’, ‘πλάνητες ἀστέρες’, meaning ‘wandering stars’). These seven bodies were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, all of which were documented by the Babylonians over three thousand years ago. Until the sixteenth century, the most commonly held view was that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe and that the seven bodies revolved around the Earth, with the relative orbits shown schematically in Figure 2.

scholarly journals Tata Ruang Kosmologis Masyarakat Adat Kampung Naga berbasis Naskah Sunda Kuno

LOKABASA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-28
Author(s):  
Elis Suryani Nani Sumarlina ◽  
Rangga Saptya Mohamad Permana ◽  
Undang Ahmad Darsa
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Human World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Ideal

Cosmologically, humans are seen as the microcosm of the universe whose entire life must always carry out all the torments or teachings of the Sanghyang Darma. That is the ideal human who can reach eternal heaven or nirvana according to the Sanghyang Raga Dewata (SRD) manuscript, one of the lontar manuscripts and the ancient Sundanese language of the sixteenth century AD. The cosmological concept of spatial Sundanese society, based on several Sundanese manuscripts of the XVI century AD, is triad, triune or triumvirate. Sundanese people have a view of parallels between the macrocosm and the microcosm, between the universe and the human world. This order seeks to find the meaning of the world according to its existence. This paper presents the cosmological layout of the Kampung Naga indigenous people, based on the Ancient Sundanese XVI century AD, which is examined through descriptive analysis research methods, and philological and cultural studies methods. The cosmological concept of the Kampung Naga community is closely related to the concept known as Tri Tangtu Di Bumi, which includes ‘tata wilayah', 'tata wayah', and 'tata lampah', all of which are interconnected with one another, according to their customs and traditions. AbstrakSecara kosmologis, manusia dipandang sebagai mikrokosmosnya jagat raya, seluruh kehidupannya harus selalu menjalankan segala siksa atau ajaran Sanghyang Darma.  Itulah manusia ideal yang kelak dapat mencapai surga abadi atau nirwana menurut naskah Sanghyang Raga Dewata (SRD), salah satu naskah lontar beraksara dan berbahasa Sunda kuno abad ke-16 Masehi. Konsep tata ruang masyarakat Sunda secara kosmologis, berdasarkan beberapa naskah Sunda abad  ke-16 Masehi, bersifat tiga serangkai, tritunggal atau triumvirate. Masyarakat Sunda memiliki pandangan tentang kesejajaran antara makrokosmos dan mikrokosmos, antara jagat raya dan dunia manusia. Dalam tatanan ini, berupaya mencari makna dunia menurut eksistensinya. Tulisan ini menyajikan kosmologis tata ruang masyarakat adat Kampung Naga, berbasis naskah Sunda Kuno abad ke-16 Masehi, yang dikaji melalui metode penelitian deskriptif analisis, dan kajian filologi dan budaya. Konsep kosmologis masyarakat Kampung Naga seperti itu, berkaitan erat dengan konsep yang dikenal dengan sebutan Tri Tangtu di Bumi, yang meliputi ‘tata wilayah’, ‘tata wayah’,  dan‘tata lampah’, yang ketiganya saling berhubungan satu sama lain, sesuai dengan adat dan tradisi mereka.

scholarly journals EKO-TEOLOGI AL-QUR`AN: SEBUAH KAJIAN TAFSIR AL-QUR`AN DENGAN PENDEKATAN TEMATIK

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Mulyani Dan Wardani
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Relationship Management ◽  
Environmental Issue ◽  
Nature Management ◽  
Important Conclusion ◽  
A Value ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Thematic Approach ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Universe

One of the important issues facing the global and human was the environmental issue. This paper discussed a solution to this global crisis from the perspective of al-Qur`an about theology environment (eco - theology). By applying a thematic approach (mawdh') in the study of Tafseer al-Qur`an, this paper came to an important conclusion. First, in view of universe al-Qur`an was referred to as evidence of God's creation creativity. Nature was also created as a sign of his power. Therefore, the universe was created had a purpose (bil hikmah) (bi al-haq), not in vain (falsehood). Second, al-Qur`an taught theological principles in the maintenance of nature, namely that the Earth was only inherited theological promised by His servants the righteous course, the relationship management of nature (taskhr) with a value of tawhid, the need to pay attention to the balance of the cosmos and the principle economic in nature management, the necessity of the earth "prospered" (i`mar), and the prohibition of destructive nature. Third, al-Qur`an stated that people who did not believe keberhikmahan universe, theologically, was a disbeliever , because at the same time he believed the futility of God's creation, so the implications are more far in the denial of moral obligation (moral imperative) and blindness spiritual (spiritual blindness). The commentators understood the "kufr ecological" implied a denial of the divinity of God Almighty and the denial of the resurrection in the afterlife.

scholarly journals Wheel Model: an exposition of competition and cooperation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinwei Lin
Keyword(s):  
Energy Level ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Competition And Cooperation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Wheel Model ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Universe

Competition and cooperation are not opposite, but competition and cooperation are closely related. Competition and cooperation are two very important driving forces for the evolution of natural organisms and the development of human civilization. Since the birth of humans, competition and cooperation have always been accompanied by human existence. This paper starts from the introduction of the earth, the universe, human civilization, and the formation of the natural world. This paper expounds that competition and cooperation are the basic principles of nature, and competition and cooperation are not opposite. Then the paper focuses on the relationship between competition and cooperation in human society. Then the wheel model is established. The wheel model is an inductive model. It can be used to vividly describe the relationship between competition and cooperation. In order to better explain the philosophical principle of the wheel model, the basic principle of the wheel model is explained by introducing the circular motion in physics, the collision of the matter principle and the atomic energy level. Then two common examples are given to illustrate the application of the wheel model. Finally, the conclusion and analysis are given.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document