Ignorance is bliss? Becoming a Copernican in Renaissance England

Stephen Johnston

(Assistant Keeper at the Museum for the History of Science, Oxford)

am Freitag, den 14. Juni 2002, 17 Uhr c.t. in Hörsaal 6 des Geomatikums

How and why did people come to accept Copernicus when there was no universally agreed empirical support for heliocentrism? I want to investigate the extent to which being a bit ignorant (of Renaissance philosophy and learning) helped in this process. Was it easier for artisans and practitioners to accept Copernicus than for scholars?