A GREAT MEDIEVAL MIND AND THE BIG BANG THEORY

by Guest Wed May 07, 2014 7:33 am

A 13th Century Bishop’s theory about the evolution of the Universe has been shown to have parallels with modern ideas of multiple universes, according to research from Durham University (UK).
The Ordered Universe Project, which brings together physicists, psychologists, cosmologists, Latin experts and medieval historians, has been studying the texts of Robert Grosseteste, one-time Bishop of Lincoln.
The team created a fresh Latin translation, aided by other experts with knowledge of the medieval mindset and its context, before applying modern mathematical and computational techniques to Grosseteste’s equations.
Their latest research paper, published today in the Royal Society Journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, is entitled “A medieval multiverse?: Mathematical modelling of the thirteenth century universe of Robert Grosseteste”.

Big Bang-like explosion of light

Grosseteste’s treatise De Luce (meaning “Concerning Light”), written in 1225, describes a Universe created via a Big Bang-like explosion of light before forming into a series of nine celestial spheres.
Dr Giles Gasper, the Ordered Universe Project’s Principal Investigator and Associate Director of Durham University’s Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, said: “De Luce is the earliest known attempt to describe the Universe using a coherent set of physical laws, centuries before Sir Isaac Newton.
“It proposes that the same physics of light and matter, which explain the solidity of ordinary objects, could be applied to the cosmos as a whole. In doing so it also suggests, although this was probably not apparent to Grosseteste at the time, a series of ordered universes reminiscent of the modern “multiverse” concept.
“Grosseteste’s calculations are very consistent and precise. Had he had access to modern calculus and computing methods, he surely would have used them, so that is what the team has done.”

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/05/2014/a-great-medieval-mind-and-the-big-bang-theory