According to received opinion, the Big Bang theory of
cosmology was formulated by Lemaître in the first half of the 20th
century, and received acceptance as a scientific account of the
Universe in the later 20th century. This paper
examines some ideas and passages by a trio of unorthodox cosmologists
from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Erasmus Darwin, Edgar
Allan Poe and Herbert Spencer) and shows how they anticipate some of
the the major outlines of the Big Bang theory. Although their insights
were not formulated within the discipline of mathematical physics, they
should not be disregarded in their role as cosmologists, as the
construction of mental and narrative models is an important aspect of
evolutionary science. It was such insights that allowed to conceive of
cosmology and physics as evolutionary sciences, a paradigm change that
is still under way.
"El Big Bang antes del Big Bang—en
Spencer, Darwin, y Poe (The Big Bang before the Big Bang—in Spencer, Darwin,
and Poe)." Social Science Research
Network 10 July 2014.*
Cultural Anthropology eJournal 10 July 2014.
English & Commonwealth Literature eJournal 10 July 2014
Philosophy
of Science eJournal 10 July 2014
—oOo—
Poe was the first to propose that revolutionary new view on our universe ?
ResponderEliminarPolish poet Juliusz Słowacki [1809-1849] wrote between 1843/4-1846? – i.e. a few years earlier than E.A.Poe – a mystical prose poem entitled «Genesis from the Spirit» published in 1871. If we reduce the mystical parts of the poem to a minimum and leave only the purely « objective » parts, we arrive at the following :
“…The Spirit… turned one point… of invisible space into a flash of Magnetic-Attractive Forces. And these turned into electric and lightning bolds – And they warmed up in the Spirit… You, Lord, forced him… to flash with destructive fire… You turned the Spirit… into a ball of fire and hung him on the abysses… And here… a circle spirits… he grabbed one handful of globes and swirled them around like a fiery rainbow… “
This is how poetic intuition could anticipate the scientific discoveries (« It is a fascinating case of cosmology in literature » – A.Cappi about «Genesis from the Spirit» )…
(see : https://www.salon24.pl/u/edalward/1334289,big-bang-according-to-the-19th-century-polish-poet-j-slowacki )
Best regards,
E.M.