Madison Rambles #5: When Telescopes Discovered The Moon's Surface
Hello, everyone!
Time for a science-lover to talk about a chapter that's 2/3rds religion and 1/3rd science! When I was a kid, I used to read tons of books about outer space, the human body, and animals. I did read other books as well, like the Bible and chapter books, but I was thirsty for knowledge about the world.
And I still am today, so that's where I'm mostly going to talk about.
If anyone wants to read about how Protestantism divided Europe, don't worry, I will also be talking about that. But in my opinion, it's so much more interesting talk about how people discovered how the moon causes tidal waves and the existence of cells.
We're talking about Chapter 15 today.
Around the 1500's, religion faced some radical changes that it either refused or accepted. However, I think we all came here to learn about how Martin Luther destroyed the credibility of the Catholic Church with some paper, a feather, and a hammer, so let's talk about that.
Martin Luther, along with some other people, saw the corruption the Catholic Church. The most famous example was having people pay to lessen the impact of their sins. Instead of just accepting it like a normal Christian at the time, he wrote on a piece of paper the Ninety-Five Theses, nailed it to a church door, and invented a new branch of Christianity known as Protestantism.
Protestantism expanded rapidly, to the point where the Thirty Years' War broke out, killing 15-30% of Germany's population and dividing countries even further religiously. European countries were either Protestant or Catholic. It is absurd to think that a dissatisfied man nailing a paper to a door caused an entire war, but that probably reinforces the saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword."
So what about science at the time? Well, humanity, mainly Europe, decided to start forming knowledge based on observations, so they created an era known as "The Enlightenment."
This was a huge deal. If people like Galileo and Isaac Newton didn't look around and think, we would still be using leeches to balance our humors. Contrary to popular belief, the church did accept some of the science from these people. Even Galileo's case was more due to his behavior than his "the Earth revolves around the sun" theory.
The chapter makes a big deal about telescopes because of its numerous discoveries, but I think it should have also talked about microscopes. Sure, the moon's surface and Saturn's rings wouldn't have been discovered without the telescope, but what about cells and viruses? We would be almost always be dying of diseases like cancer and smallpox without the microscope! And we can't look up at the moon if we're dead, can we?
Then again, the microscope could be considered the telescope to the microscopic world. They even have the same suffix. Hmmm...
And that's how we get from Protestantism to a microscope vs. telescope debate. Both are fun to write about. I should learn more about the Thirty Years' War; it's the most absurd war I've ever heard about.
Next time, I'll talk about the Atlantic Ocean countries, including Haiti and the United States of America. We've gotten to America so fast...
Until next time!
Time for a science-lover to talk about a chapter that's 2/3rds religion and 1/3rd science! When I was a kid, I used to read tons of books about outer space, the human body, and animals. I did read other books as well, like the Bible and chapter books, but I was thirsty for knowledge about the world.
And I still am today, so that's where I'm mostly going to talk about.
If anyone wants to read about how Protestantism divided Europe, don't worry, I will also be talking about that. But in my opinion, it's so much more interesting talk about how people discovered how the moon causes tidal waves and the existence of cells.
We're talking about Chapter 15 today.
Around the 1500's, religion faced some radical changes that it either refused or accepted. However, I think we all came here to learn about how Martin Luther destroyed the credibility of the Catholic Church with some paper, a feather, and a hammer, so let's talk about that.
Martin Luther, along with some other people, saw the corruption the Catholic Church. The most famous example was having people pay to lessen the impact of their sins. Instead of just accepting it like a normal Christian at the time, he wrote on a piece of paper the Ninety-Five Theses, nailed it to a church door, and invented a new branch of Christianity known as Protestantism.
Protestantism expanded rapidly, to the point where the Thirty Years' War broke out, killing 15-30% of Germany's population and dividing countries even further religiously. European countries were either Protestant or Catholic. It is absurd to think that a dissatisfied man nailing a paper to a door caused an entire war, but that probably reinforces the saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword."
So what about science at the time? Well, humanity, mainly Europe, decided to start forming knowledge based on observations, so they created an era known as "The Enlightenment."
This was a huge deal. If people like Galileo and Isaac Newton didn't look around and think, we would still be using leeches to balance our humors. Contrary to popular belief, the church did accept some of the science from these people. Even Galileo's case was more due to his behavior than his "the Earth revolves around the sun" theory.
The chapter makes a big deal about telescopes because of its numerous discoveries, but I think it should have also talked about microscopes. Sure, the moon's surface and Saturn's rings wouldn't have been discovered without the telescope, but what about cells and viruses? We would be almost always be dying of diseases like cancer and smallpox without the microscope! And we can't look up at the moon if we're dead, can we?
Then again, the microscope could be considered the telescope to the microscopic world. They even have the same suffix. Hmmm...
And that's how we get from Protestantism to a microscope vs. telescope debate. Both are fun to write about. I should learn more about the Thirty Years' War; it's the most absurd war I've ever heard about.
Next time, I'll talk about the Atlantic Ocean countries, including Haiti and the United States of America. We've gotten to America so fast...
Until next time!
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