

Unearthing a 13th-century metaverse - feelthepain
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/04/cosmology

======
14113
For anyone interested in more information on this topic the project has it's
own website: [http://ordered-universe.com/](http://ordered-universe.com/)

I actually worked on this project over last summer, as an intern in the
computer science department, trying to visualise some of his ideas for
inclusion in a 3d film.

There is some context that I think a lot of people in this thread are missing
in regards to grossetestes work. Most importantly, he was one of the earliest
practitioners of what we would now call the scientific method, and the one of
the first to try and actually link his theories with actual observations.

On top of this, he also attempted to link ancient greek philosophical
traditions, which posited an unending constant universe, with (then)
contemporary christian ones, which believed in a fixed moment of creation.
This led to him being one of the earliest people to put forward the idea of an
expanding universe, and propose a scientific explanation to the start to the
universe.

Finally, Durham university is one of the best in europe for studying
astronomy, and Professor Tom McLeish and the department he's in one of the
best. I only mention this as it seems like there are number of comments
accusing the researchers of being hacks who are trying to twist science to fit
outdated ideas. In reality, what they're doing is assisting historians in
analysing how early scientists thought and conceived of ideas in the hope of
providing more context to the history of science.

~~~
ddt
I love this. Do you happen to know of any good reading materials on pre-
Enlightenment or even pre-printing press scientific history? It gets boring
hearing that there was no academic advancement from the fall of the Roman
Empire until Galileo.

------
feelthepain
Fascinating effort to formalize a medieval treatise - De Luce (“On Light”,
written around 1225) - about the origins of the universe into modern
mathematics. What the researchers discovered and why they did this is
explained at The Ordered Universe Project. [http://ordered-
universe.com/](http://ordered-universe.com/) Their paper on this was published
in the Proceedings of the Royal Society but can be found on arXiv.
[http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.0769](http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.0769)

------
dodders
> A scientist, philosopher, mathematician, theologian and at one point Bishop
> of Lincoln, he was one of the first thinkers in northern Europe to read both
> Aristotle and the various Islamic commentators on the Greek philosopher’s
> work, all of which were newly translated into Latin.

I'm always amazed by how productive the pre TV/internet/facebook scholars
sound. Who would have time for all that reading and thinking today with a day
job as a Bishop?

~~~
ddt
Partly, it has to do with the role of the church pre-enlightenment. The modern
secular university didn't exist in the 13th Century. The concept of a teaching
body that granted degrees, certifications, and did research was barely off the
ground with things like the University of Paris and the Thing Which Would
Become Oxford University. The scientific method didn't exist as any formal
process. If you wanted to spend your life thinking, you didn't have too many
vocational options outside of the church.

As to his role as a "scientist, philosopher, mathematician, theologian",
that's more a projection of modern concepts onto a historical figure. There
wasn't nearly as much siloing of various intellectual pursuits. There were
just secrets of Nature to be discovered, and people looking to discover them.

~~~
pizza
Do you know of any good books about this "projection of modern concepts onto a
historical figure" thing? It's something I've been thinking about for a while.

~~~
ddt
I haven't read any books specifically on this topic, but it's a fairly common
thing in non-academic (and sometimes academic) discussions of history. There's
a subreddit, [http://reddit.com/r/badhistory](http://reddit.com/r/badhistory),
that spends a lot of time picking apart bad historical arguments from around
the web. Just as often as not, I'd say, the issue with the history is just as
much trying to apply modern morality and societal norms to a culture
completely removed from the modern day as it is factual inaccuracies.

It's not exactly a rigorous explanation of the phenomenon, but it is a good
set of case studies.

Also, it should be noted that using modern concepts in a historical setting is
not always "wrong" or "bad history". It's pretty clear the author of this
article chose to describe Grosseteste the way they did to simplify his work
for a broader audience.

------
suprgeek
After reading the paper that the researchers have come out with - this is
really the key passage.

"..that they could be re-expressed using modern mathematical and computing
techniques—as the medieval scholar might have done if he had been able to use
such methods."

Basically physicists reinterpreted the ideas sketched out using some passages
that have phrases such as lux & lumen by substituting concepts that we know
now and then correcting the theory to match present understanding.

While this is a fun read, there is some kind of nonsensical "Humanities" spin
given to a few physicists working out a Cosmological theory developed over
multiple decades by Other physicists in the wordings of a (admittedly) smart
man by wholesale reinterpretations.

~~~
14113
Well technically it's more like the humanities people asked the physicists to
help them interpret his ideas using todays scientific language. If you read
Grossetestes original writings, even when translated into english, they read
very differently to how any modern scientific theory or description would. So
really, the scientists are helping the humanities people examine his ideas
through the lens of modern notation and prose.

Source: Worked on this project over last summer as one of the scientists,
developing 3d visualisation of _De Luce_.

------
king_magic
Just to be clear, the actual title of the article is "Unearthing a 13th-
century metaverse". Might not seem like a big deal, but it feels a bit link-
baity to change a key part of the title when posting to HN (and no, I do not
mean link-baity on the part of The Economist - but rather on the part of the
OP).

~~~
rm445
1\. Quoting from the article: 'Grosseteste, then, had created a medieval
“multiverse”. ' Article writers don't write headlines and in this case I
believe the headline is in error.

2\. Metaverse will be well-understood on Hacker News to mean a virtual reality
shared space (pace Snow Crash), rather than anything else.

~~~
king_magic
I somewhat agree, and very well may be an error - but frankly, let's face it -
when faced with a choice of clicking on a link that includes "multiverse" vs.
"metaverse", it's pretty obvious (to me, at least) which one the HN crowd is
going to be drawn to.

Again, the direct title on The Economist is "metaverse" (no single quotes),
not "multiverse" (in single quotes). I get what your saying, it just feels
like the OP changed the title to make it seem cooler. At least that's my take.

------
frozenport
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7656535](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7656535)

~~~
dang
Given that that discussion was mostly complaining about phys.org, and that HN
is always in the market for interesting historical material, I'd say the
current post is fine.

------
T-A
So the Economist's point is that a "research" project exploring an idea about
the universe which has been known to be incorrect for centuries somehow proves
the value of the humanities? Really?

~~~
dang
Please let's keep to the intellectually substantive topic, not the shortest
path from there to a flamewar.

The substantive topic is the historical material, and history is welcome on
Hacker News. In fact, it's a protected species—we don't have nearly enough of
it.

~~~
Uhhrrr
Yeah, but the creation of more is pretty much a given.

