tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post3918906719501390754..comments2024-03-29T04:31:15.219-05:00Comments on Pastoral Meanderings: A Late Birthday. . . Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-51429744581080505332016-04-29T23:09:58.849-05:002016-04-29T23:09:58.849-05:00Heisenberg was baptized and remained a Lutheran ev...Heisenberg was baptized and remained a Lutheran even after he received the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for his Uncertainty Principle (1927). He and his wife raised their children in the church and he also gave talks about science and religion. In 1922 he was an assistant to Max Born, another quantum physicist & Nobel laureate. As an adult, Born (a Jew) was also baptized and married in the Lutheran church, but he remained only a nominal member. Because the Nazis considered him a Jew, Born eventually went to England, returning to Germany to live when he retired in 1952.Carl Vehsehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00348831096001668813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-5610312480506999942016-04-29T20:24:14.249-05:002016-04-29T20:24:14.249-05:00He was also a Schwab. He was also a Schwab. Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07737698278079495810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-69052567860709839042016-04-29T19:28:35.583-05:002016-04-29T19:28:35.583-05:00Werner Heisenburg and the Uncertainty Principal - ...Werner Heisenburg and the Uncertainty Principal - made famous in "Breaking Bad" was a Lutheran? So cool.<br /> MabelMabelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03122873995483573876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-20019048724053128002016-04-29T15:32:13.201-05:002016-04-29T15:32:13.201-05:00In addition to Johannes Kepler (until he was excom...In addition to Johannes Kepler (until he was excommunicated) and Michael Maestlin (mentioned previously), science and mathematics have been greatly enriched because of such Lutherans as Georg Joachim Rheticus, Tycho Brahe, Georg Samuel Doerffel, Ole Christensen Roemer, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Anders Celsius, Gottfried Wilhelm Liebnitz, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, Bernard Riemann (a PK!), Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, Georg Cantor, Heinrich Rudolph Hertz, Ejnar Hertzsprung, Kurt Godel, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Lise Meitner (born Jewish), and Wernher von Braun.<br /><br />Some of these remained Lutheran their entire lives; others did not.Carl Vehsehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00348831096001668813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-45049164155214821812016-04-29T07:52:04.974-05:002016-04-29T07:52:04.974-05:00Enjoyed reading about Kepler, I had studied him in...Enjoyed reading about Kepler, I had studied him in my college astronomy and physics classes but not in great detail. Delighted to hear that he was a Lutheran, AND that he was excommunicated. Someone who has studied astronomy in depth is not going to take the biblical story of creation literally either. I had not known what the Real Presense was, despite 3 years of catechism classes. Mabelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03122873995483573876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-4954063526729690992016-04-28T12:23:39.513-05:002016-04-28T12:23:39.513-05:00"There is one more thing you should know abou...<i>"There is one more thing you should know about Kepler. He was a Lutheran!"</i> <br /><br />There's a little more to the story.<br /><br />In 1596 Johannes Kepler published his work, <i>Mysterium cosmographicum</i> (<i>The Cosmographic Mystery</i>), under the supervision of his former University of Tübingen professor and Lutheran astronomer Michael Maestlin (a second edition was published in 1621), but Kepler’s orthodox Lutheran mentor, Matthias Hafenreffer at the University of Tübingen, urged Kepler to remove an entire chapter, in which Kepler sought to demonstrate that the reality of heliocentrism was compatible with Scripture.<br /><br />Hafenreffer’s argument was that Kepler’s writings in this chapter violated the position of the Church and would cause serious strife: <i>“I advise and admonish you as a brother that you not attempt to propound or fight for that stated harmonization publicly, for thus many good men would be offended, and not unjustly, and the whole business could either be impeded, or tainted with the grave stain of dissension.”</i><br /><br />Kepler wrote to Michael Maestlin, about his quandary, <i>"The whole of astronomy is not worth one of Christ’s little ones being offended."</i> Kepler finally bowed to his mentor’s urging, perhaps naively believing that, having read his book, Hafenreffer would certainly have been persuaded of the heliocentric reality, rather than just being a convenient mathematical tool. Hafenreffer did allow Kepler to include in Chapter 1 the statement: <br /><br /><i>"It is an act of piety at the very beginning of this discourse about Nature to see whether it says anything contrary to Holy Writ. Nevertheless, I believe that it is premature to raise this question here before I am assailed. In general I promise to say nothing harmful to Holy Writ, and if Copernicus is convicted of anything with me, I shall consider him finished. And this was always my intention from the time when I began to examine the books of Copernicus' </i>Revolutions<i>."</i><br /><br />Ironically, it was Hafenreffer and Daniel Hitzler, a pastor in Linz, where Kepler had moved from Prague, who eventually had Kepler excommunicated from the Lutheran Church on July 31, 1619, for Kepler's refusal to unconditionally accept the Formula of Concord (specifically the doctrine of the Real Presence).<br /><br />More information is in:<br /><br /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xPq0Bv5Kz4EC&pg=PA117&f=false" rel="nofollow"><i>Change and Continuity in Early Modern Cosmology</i></a> (Patrick Bonner, Springer Science & Business Media, 2011)<br /><br /><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=sWccAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA227&f=false" rel="nofollow"><i>Copernicus and his Successors</i></a> (Edwards Rosen<br />Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010)<br /><br />"<a href="http://www.studiumexcitare.com/content/134" rel="nofollow">Matthias Hafenreffer</a>" by Andrew Hussman.Carl Vehsehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00348831096001668813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-11567855006883865522016-04-28T09:38:58.038-05:002016-04-28T09:38:58.038-05:00I have studied science, mechanics in particular, f...I have studied science, mechanics in particular, for almost 60 years. While I never heard of Kepler's estimate of the age of the earth, I have heard countless times of his three laws of planetary motion. He is still very much recognized for those three laws, and they continue to be taught regularly. Our "advanced knowledge" has not invalidated them, just as it has not invalidated Newton's work.<br /><br />But in all that, I never heard that Kepler was a Lutheran. Was he LCMS (just kidding)?<br /><br />Fr.D+Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com