Obtain Meskun Dünyaların Çokluğu Author Bernard Le Bovier De Fontenelle Mobi

book trying to explain in the simplest terms how the Earth is spinning on itself and around the sun.
And many other things like eclipses and moon cycles,

The book is set as a conversation between the author and an aristocratic lady,


Some quotes:

Non, répliquaije, il ne me sera point reproché que dans un bois, à dix heures du soir, jaie parlé de philosophie à la plus aimable personne que je connoisse.
Cherchez ailleurs vos philosophes.

Toute la philosophie, lui disje, nest fondée que sur deux choses, sur ce quon a lesprit curieux et les yeux mauvais car si vous aviez les yeux meilleurs, que vous ne les avez, vous verriez bien si les étoiles sont des soleils qui éclairent autant de mondes, ou si elles nen sont pas et si dun autre côté vous étiez moins curieuse, vous ne vous soucieriez pas de le savoir, ce qui reviendroit au même mais on veut savoir plus quon ne voit, cest là la difficulté.
Encore, si ce quon voit, on le voyoit bien, ce seroit toujours autant de connu, mais on le voit tout autrement quil nest.
Ainsi les vrais philosophespassent leur vie à ne point croire ce quils voient, et à tâcher de deviner ce quils ne voient point, et cette condition nest pas, ce me semble, trop à envier.


Tout cela ne gagnera rien sur mon bourgeois, il sobstinera toujours à soutenir que SaintDenis nest point habité, puisquil ny voit personne.
Notre SaintDenis cest la Lune, et chacun de nous est ce bourgeois de Paris, qui nest jamais sorti de sa ville.

This is a short one but a good one,

The tale is only someodd pages long it was revised countless times by the author thru the decades this is thest printing from.
The Univ of Cal Press publication which I read is supplemented with both a lengthy Introduction and Translator's Preface which add even more interest.
Apparently, the tome was very well received and influential,

"Conversations " is fiction and it is about science, However, H. A. Hargreaves the translator cautions about classifying it as early science fiction, If not directly on the s, f evolutionary path, it certainly is kind of a "missing link",

I found it fascinating that more or less Fontenelle had handle on the solar system, as suns even positing that they "expired" and reappeared, galaxies as collections of suns, etc.
Oddly, when speculating about life on other planets, he dismisses Mars in favor of the others!

Different and very worthwhile.




I was curious to read this after hearing it referred to as one of the first known popular science books this must depend on how you define science as well as “popular” science.
Written inone year before Newtons Principia was published it beautifully lays out a Copernican view of the solar system and beyond through a dialogue with an aristocratic woman untrained in science.
de Fontenelle takes the Copernican worldview one step further and argues that because the Earth is not a special place, every other planet and moon must be inhabited, and he successively speculates on what the world is like from the point of view of citizens of each planet.
The sense of wonder and curiosity about other life gives this the flavor of an early form of science fiction.
The book also gives an interesting glimpse of what astronomers and philosophers understood about universe at that time, as well as where they were mistaken for example, de Fontanelle still believed in “vortices” carrying the planets along instead of forces, and didnt realize that we are part of the Milky Way.


It is interesting to observe de Fontanelles caution in sidestepping theological issues to placate the censors.
For instance, he takes a detour at the beginning to argue that the life on other planets is unlikely to be human, thus there is no conflict with man being descended from Adam and Eve.


The book also seems surprisingly feminist for the time, The protagonist is a woman and it is made clear that women are viewed as being capable of the reason necessary to understand science.
In multiple places, the Marquise contradicts her teacher who acknowledges that she has made a compelling argument and he is wrong.
On the other hand, the treatment of race is not so forwardthinking, It is shocking and eyeopening to see what blatantly racist ideas were mainstream at the time and how they were mixed into scientific arguments to make a certain point.
And of course, the book is quite predictably Eurocentric, although the irony of writing an entire book arguing how our planet cant be a special place in the universe yet ending with a declaration that Europe is the best place on the planet seems to have been lost on people of the time.
Surveying the night sky, a charming philosopher and his hostess, the Marquise, are considering thep ossibility of travelers from the moon.
"What if they were skillful enough to navigate on the outer surface of our air, and from there, through their curiosity to see us, they angled for us like fish Would that please you" asks the philosopher.
"Why not" the Marquise replies, "As for me, I'd put myself into their nets of my own volition just to have the pleasure of seeing those who caught me.
"
In this imaginary conversation of three hundred years ago, readers can share the excitement of a new, extremely daring view of the uinverse.
Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes, first published in, is one of the best loved classics of the early French enlightenment.
Through a series of informal dialogues that take place on successive evenings in the marquise's moonlit gardens, Fontenelle describes the new cosmology of the Copernican world view with matchles clarity, imagination, and wit.
Moreover, he boldly makes his interlocutor a woman, inviting female participation in the almost exclusively male province of scientific discourse.

The popular Fontenelle lived through an entire century, fromto, and wrote prolifically, H. A. Hargreaves's fresh, appealing translation brings the author's masterpiece to new generations of readers, while the introduction by Nina Rattner Gelbart clearly demonstrates the importance of the Conversations for the history of science, of women, of literature, and of French civilization, and for the popularization of culture.
Read in fascimile at:
sitelink org/books/OL .

Additional description of the edition on the cover page:
"WITH NOTES, and a critical account of the author's writings by Jerome de la Lande, Senior Director of the Observatory at Paris.
"
"Translated from a late Paris Edition, by Miss Elizabeth Gunning, "
printing by J. Cundee, IvyLane, London.

A fascinating glimpse into Enlightenment openmindedness in which scientific discovery and philosophy fed off each other.
This is a lighthearted presentation for the general public on the astronomical physics of the day, It is postCopernicus/Galileo and midNewton, just a couple years pregravitation i, e. , prior to Principae. Much of the discussion in this "dialogue", once the issues of viewing perspectives, astronomical distances and sizes are dealt with, concerns the possibilities of life on other planets and on planets around other.
De la Lande supplies footnotes to bring De Fontenelle'syearold astronomy up to dateby, for example, correcting some distances and mentioning the newth planet which apparently lacked an official name, so he refers to it simply as "Herschel".
A fiction book fromwhich became a bestseller in its day, Fontenelle writes of six nights of conversation between a couple whereby the scientific discoveries of the day are discussed that the Earth rotates the Sun and not vice versa and there are more in the heavens than those visible to the naked eye such that the reader is informed about the unfolding new field of scientific knowledge.
Reading this book gives an interesting insight into the beliefs of the seventeenth century when people were scared of eclipse, and believed it likely people lived on the moon and planets and comets in our solar system.
A concoction of exaggerated Copernican scientific views on the cosmos, presented through a fictitious setting, . . Ath look at astronomy, . . A rather interesting read for those thus inclined, I listened to an audio version with varied readers, Amazing for research An astounding book, Don't let the dull cover or the fact that it was written in theth Century deter you from picking up

this book.
I wish Fontanelle had explained the solar system to me when I was younger, because he picks such beautiful metaphors to illustrate the motions of the moon and the Earth.


It was a controversial book in its day, but Fontanelle was such a clever writer that he quite successfully in my opinion evaded the religious criticism of the clergy.
Titre austère pour ce qui n'est finalement, en caricaturant un peu, qu'une partie de drague avec la philo comme prétexte.
Donc Monsieur le Philosophe va enseigner à la belle Marquise nous sommes enles rudiments de la cosmologie, L'atmosphère s'y prête: un parc, la nuit bardée des étoiles, . .

Plus sérieusement en admettant que la drague n'est pas sérieuse, ce qui se discute.
. . , c'est une des premières tentatives de faire sortir la philo de son milieu académique et institutionnel, de s'adresser à une autre public que les clercs habituels.
Le style dialogué, lointain héritage socratique, se banalisera tout au long du siècle des Lumières.


Le contenu en luimême est faible: la question de savoir s'il y a des habitants sur d'autres planètes dont la Lune et si oui, de quoi ils ont l'air.
L'éditeur ne s'est même pas donné la peine de corriger les incongruités astronomiques en notes de bas de page, c'est dire.
Reste un argument de poids d'ordre théologique: Si on arrivait à prouver l'existence de vie sur d'autres planètes, voilà qui serait en contradiction avec le récit de la genèse biblique.
On peut aujourd'hui encore se servir de cet argument contre les créationnistes, . .

Quant à la Marquise, elle manque de culture, ce qui est normal pour la condition féminine de l'époque, mais ce n'est pas par manque d'esprit.
Quand, face aux révélations du philosophe, elle dit "il me faut croire", ce n'est sans doute pas à prendre dans le sens religieux, mais plutôt dans celui de "crédible" dans le sens rationnel.
Ce qui revient à dire que les spéculations métaphysiques sans queue ni tête, elle s'en passerait volontiers.
Du reste, son attitude est tout à fait moderne: plus elle en apprend sur l'univers, plus elle s'en inquiète.
I seriously added this to my goodreads account Creative imagination and some bigotry, First read this in grad school, over a half century ago this week Jan, ', while researching G Bruno's influence on theC moonmappers Langrenus, Hevelius, and Riccioliwhose names we still use, like the Mare Tranquillitatis/ Sea of Tranquillity.
Fontenelle was good then, and perhaps even better now,
Editor A. Calame notes that in, thirteen years after he published this, Fontenelle was made lifelong Secretary of L'Académie royale des Sciences, and brought out new editions, including one where he used Riccioli's selenographic names, like "la mer des Crises"xxviii.
Our author studied other sciences to write Entretiens, including chemistry and microbiology, the works of Leeuwenhoek,
L foundto,"petits poissons," probably onecelled microbes, in a drop of water,
Fontenelle remarks in his Preface his choice of material "de piquer la curiosité", by diverting his reader with digressions as in Ovid's "L'Art d'aimer" one of which John Donne translated wholesale in his "Indifferent".
He foresees objection from theologians, since the inhabitants of the Moom would not be descendents of Adam and Eve.


As the Marquise protagonist converses on her estate, she asks how we know there can be people on the Moon.
Fontenelle responds, question for question, "What if there were no business between Paris and its suburb St Denis"
'Un Bourgeois de Paris, qui ne sera jamais sorti de sa Ville, soit sur les Tours de NotreDame, et voye SaintDenis de loin on lui demandera s'il croit que SaintDenis soit habite comme Paris.
Il repondra hardiment que non, '"
But the two places both have clocktowers, large buildings, and similar walls, Saint Denis is our Moon, The Marquise asks, "Well, what sort of inhabitants can they possibly be" Bernard de F, confesses he doesn't know, but they couldn't possibly be any more bizarre than humans: "Pourrionsnous bien nous figurer quelque chose qui eut des passions si folles, et des reflexions si sages, une duree si courte, et des vues si longues.
. . "

This insight occurs on the Second Soir of Sixième, as these conversations only happened evenings, not walking in the Autumn estate.
As the Marquise comes to understand Mercury is very close to the Sun, she wishes abundant rain on that hapless planet.
On the Quatrième Soir, she paraphrases Plato's dying gratitude, that he was born human, not animal, Greek, and not Barbarian she's grateful for having been born on a temperate planet, and the most temperate place on that planet.
Fontnelle says, Madame, you should be thankful you are young and not old, "jeune et belle, et non jeune et laide," young and beautiful Françoise, et non Italiene".


The prediction of flight followed a discussion of sailing large Navires 'round the Monde, "L'art de voler ne fait encore que de naître, il se perfectionnera, et quelque jour on ira jusqu'a la Lune".
To the Moon! Giordano Bruno had described such a flight, in Latin, almost a century earlier,

When I spoke on Bruno at Harvard Center for Astrophysics, I asked Chairman Avi Loeb if Id been right to say that NASA was spendingB per year to prove G Bruno right.
Prof Loeb responded, “Close enough, ”
See my talk there on my website link: sitelinkwww, habitableworlds. com







Pagination from the edition on my shelf, Didier: Paris,.
First printed in. .