Le Moyen Age

There is a wonderful piece in Nature this week on the work of Grosseteste. It discusses his work on Light and the Universe. The authors conclude that his efforts were hardly those of some monk in the Dark Ages. Indeed, I have argued that before, and even more so, there were efforts during the true Dark Ages from 600-1000 AD. But Grosseteste worked during the 13th Century, a truly remarkable time.

The authors state:

 De Luce (On Light), written in 1225 in Latin and dense with mathematical thinking, explores the nature of matter and the cosmos. Four centuries before Isaac Newton proposed gravity and seven centuries before the Big Bang theory, Grosseteste describes the birth of the Universe in an explosion and the crystallization of matter to form stars and planets in a set of nested spheres around Earth.

They conclude:

 Because projects such as ours can be of significant scientific and cultural value, scientific granting agencies should consider funding arts and sciences projects or partnering with arts and humanities councils to translate other early scientific works, for example. The eight-century journey from Grosseteste's cosmological ideas to our own offers a rich illustration of the slow evolution in our understanding, and of the delight to be found in reaching out into nature with our imagination.

However there were two stumbling blocks they faced. he first was  the lack of the mathematical tools. No calculus and they still stumbled even with Algebra. Second, was the lack of tools to measure, and even more so agreed upon measurements. Time was difficult, distance the same, and thus velocity problematic. Yet substantial insight and progress was made.