
Lomonosov’s Discovery of Venus Atmosphere in 1761 - lermontov
http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.3489
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themodelplumber
Seems like the TL;DR would be something like: Man sees planet pass in front of
the sun, but with fuzzy & bright bits & bulging where otherwise sharp edges
around the planet & sun would be. Man then proceeds to explain why science is
complementary to christianity.

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rdtsc
It interesting to see some passages tying the discovery with the faith in
general. This is 1700s after all. And how the approach taken is in contrast to
what a lot of fundamentalist or conservative Christians believe today. Talking
about a deep resentment towards science and how they see it as an attack on
their faith.

And it is funny that here is someone from 1700s, quoting an Orthodox Christian
writer from more than 1500 years before who seems to be pretty ok with aliens
living on Venus:

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"St. Basil the Great considered the possibility of multiple worlds and said: "
As a potter, who made thousands of water pots with the same skill and
exhausted no art and no power, the Creator of the universe has enough creative
power not only for a single world, but for as many as [He] wants to create in
a single moment alone. "

\---

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eveningcoffee
I think that it is fair to pay close attention to the preamble of the paper
where Lomonosov encourages the scientific development.

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ZanyProgrammer
Not too many papers on astronomers that reference St John Damascene.

