Astronomy and Cosmology

Author(s): L C Jain
Publisher: Rajasthan Prakrit Bharti Sansthan Jaipur

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stories of such awakening cover the role played by Lucretiusi (-98 to--55), Ptolemy2 (c+-150), Copernicus3 (+1473 to +1543), Galileo4 (+ 1564 to
+ 1642), Newton5 ( + 1642 to + 1727), Einstein ( + 1879 to + 1955 ), Eddington? (+ 1882 to + 1944) and Hoyle8 (+ 1915 to-...), All have left indelible marks in the history of astronomy and cosmology, and even before them all, one could discover out the Jaina system which also championed the science awakening for the cause of research on truth and non-violence, prior to the Siddhāntic period of Indian astronomical fervour, after the era of the Vedārga Jyotişa
SCIENCE AWAKENING
Titus Lucretius Carus was a great poet of science, unparalleled in Rome, fighting fear of gods, of sin and death. He belonged to the class among whom was stated, “Then, my noble friend, geometry will draw the soul towards truth and create the spirit of philosophy, and raise up that which is now, unhappily, allowed to fall down."9 Lucretius argued 10 “Bear this well in mind, and you will immediately perceive that nature is free and uncontrolled by proud masters and runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods. For who- by the sacred hearts of the gods who pass their unruffled lives, their placid aeon, in calm and peace !- who can rule the sum total of the measureless ? Who can hold in coercive hand the strong reins of the unfathomable ? Who can spin all the firmaments alike.
1. Vid. Nature of the Universe', trans, R. E. Latham, Penguin Books
Ltd., 1951. 2. Vid. "The Almagest', trans. R. C. Taliaferro, 'Great Books of the
Western World', series, vol. 16, Book I-Chicago, 1952. 3. Vid. “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium ( 1543 )', published by
Royal Astronomical Society. 4. Vid. "Diologue concerning the two chief world systems- Ptolemic and
Copernican', trans. Stillman Drake, Univ. of California Press, 1933. 5. Vid. Philosophiac Naturalis Principia Mathematica', Drake, A, M.,
trans. rev. by F. Cajori, Univ. of California Press, 1946. (Cf. also
Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam, 1934). 6. Vid. "The World As I See It', Newyork. 7. Vid. “The Expanding Universe,' Cambridge, 1933. 8. Vid. “The Nature of the Universe', New York, 1960. 9. Cf. Coolidge, J. L., A History of Geometrical Methods, Oxford, 1940. 10. Cf. ‘Nature of the Universe', op. cit.
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