Courses

Milestones in the science of cosmology over the past 6000 years. Skylore and observation in ancient cultures. The twin revolutions of the Greeks: Pythagoras and Ptolemy; and Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Great Chain of Being. The scientific revolution: the impersonal and deterministic world-order of Newton, Laplace, and Kelvin. The erosion of that world-order by mathematics and experiment in the 20th century (relativity, quantum physics, dark matter, and the expanding universe). Todays searches for a new grand order in the Universe, which can cope - or maybe not - with these blows to yesterdays comfortable wisdom.