astronomers-from-italy

"In my opinion, those who believe that a weak science, aware of its own limitations and its own continuous provisional nature, dialogues better with faith because it is incapable of “challenging it” are mistaken. Quite the contrary is true: a science that recognizes itself as a quest for truth is more open to the questions that matter, the truly important ones, which point to the origin and meaning of things, thus making itself ready to listen with interest to the answers that theology and faith offer to these questions. The worst enemy of the Christian faith continues to be ignorance and superficiality, certainly not science."

"Saying that Christian theology provided the cultural and philosophical ‘humus’ for the birth of science is of little interest to anyone, while saying, impertinently, that science and theology are eternally at war, or that Christianity is irrational, sells books."

"The Christian faith is a friend of reason, and a God without Logos cannot be the Christian God. The world responds to a creative plan, and this plan is in a certain way glimpsed by the man of science, who is capable of perceiving this Logos because his intelligence is the image of God. Theology must take an interest in scientific knowledge in order to be a better theology."

"I believe that Darwin was good at helping us understand the past, but I wouldn't invoke him too much as a prophet of future scenarios. The biological evolution of human beings seems to have stopped precisely with the emergence of freedom and culture."

"Contemporary philosophy has considered the subject of God and the meaning of life too “strong” to be addressed, thus settling on positions of weak thought. Science, on the contrary, has not been afraid to address these questions, as can be easily seen in the popular works of many scientists. The fact that the scientific method cannot provide a comprehensive answer to these questions does not prevent them from arising and continuing to attract those who study nature."

"The Christian faith does not seem to have any prejudicial arguments against the presence of life and intelligent life in the cosmos (how could it, since these are events that belong to the factual order?), but neither can it be considered anti-scientific to consider reasonable, in the absence of compelling data, the “classical solution” that envisages the uniqueness of the human being... Even the Incarnation of the Word has a revelatory value that is universal, not just local. Its primacy over angelic creatures may ultimately be an expression of its primacy over all possible creatures, a Christocentric primacy, not geocentric or anthropocentric, even if we do not know how it is exercised. The final word on the subject of life in the cosmos does not belong to theology, but to science. Theology, like the rest of humanity, can only wait."

"Evolution, after all, is the way God creates."

"The idea of evolution is at home in Christian theology. For the cosmos and life to evolve, a positive amount of information is necessary. I do not believe that biological evolution is possible in a materialistic world, without information, without direction, without a plan."

"It is often believed that defending the dignity of the human person and his transcendent dimension requires revenge against the reasons for scientific progress, which should therefore be scaled back, slowed down, or even rejected. Little thought is given to the fact that the true subject of technical and scientific endeavour is the human person, and that this endeavour, in addition to expressing a vocation to seek the truth, has a value of promotion for man and for the whole society in which he lives."

"The story of Galileo Galilei, on closer inspection, was not an exegetical dispute but a great philosophical and cultural confrontation, which had a positive influence on the Catholic Church, spurring it to distance itself more and more from an instrumental and unenlightened use of the Scriptures.... If they are true knowledge of the world, Catholic theology has nothing to fear from scientific knowledge: it may be rightly challenged by it, but, for the sake of the one truth, it must accept the challenge with intellectual honesty and epistemological rigor."

"The standard model that organizes the properties of elementary particles is highly symmetrical and elegant, but it is not the only example. Just think of Mendeleev's Periodic Table of Elements, or Maxwell's equations describing electromagnetism. Good science seems to have a privileged relationship with order and symmetry: it is not a relationship that we only read about in our intellect, it must also have sufficient objective confirmation in things. The news that the Higgs boson seems to have finally been revealed confirms us in the same idea. We now know that the 24 fundamental particles and the four forces of nature can be brought together in a single grand theoretical framework. Some may wonder where this rationality and elegance come from and, more boldly, whether they have any connection with the idea that the physical universe is the reflection of a creative intelligence... Put this way, the question goes beyond what the scientific method can tell us, which is based on measurable quantities and does not question the ultimate causes of reality. It is nevertheless significant that scientists, as human beings, are surprised by this and seek an explanation. The question then becomes philosophical or perhaps even theological: we cannot answer it by asking for new measurements from the Large Hadron Collider, but it is interesting that, as a question, it is now also being raised by scientific research and is arising in our laboratories."

"Every step forward in our certain knowledge of nature is always a step toward the truth of things and, ultimately, toward Truth with a capital T."

"Most media outlets present us with the image of scientists as atheists or, at the very least, people who are not inclined to see nature as the work of a creator God. However, this image only partially corresponds to reality and is not representative of scientists as a whole."

"From the point of view of scientific analysis, the term “finalism” should not be too surprising, if it does not refer to an intentional purpose, but only to an interpretative strategy. The action of finalistic principles, in fact, is not new to other fields of science. Mathematical physics knows the principle of least action, which indicates how a physical system always takes the most advantageous path. The principles of classical thermodynamics are essentially finalistic principles, and chemistry also uses them when explaining chemical bonds, starting from the principle that each atom tends to complete its eight fundamental electron orbitals."

"To do science, you need commitment and passion. You need to have at least an implicit belief that nature will not behave capriciously towards us, but will remain faithful to its laws. Above all, you need to believe that there is a truth out there, and that it is worth seeking. Every scientist has his or her own “worldview” and within that worldview employs the categories he or she finds most congenial. It is this personalistic aspect of scientific research, now highlighted by many authors, that deserves to be explored. The reasons why a scientist “embraces” one worldview rather than another also deserve to be explored."

"When Christians no longer live according to their faith, history will not fail to show the consequences, reserving for them a necessary purification."

"The horizon of our knowledge, even scientific knowledge, is open to being, to totality. And this is simply because knowledge is a dimension of our spirit, unlimited because it transcends matter. The material world may one day end, but our knowledge of it, insofar as it participates in the knowledge of God, never ends."

"The physical and mathematical sciences now have a mature epistemology, which protects them from ideological drifts because it has made them touch in a formally rigorous way on the foundations, and also the limits, of knowledge. The biological sciences, on the other hand, are younger and have not yet encountered the problems of formal and ontological incompleteness that the physical and mathematical sciences are well aware of. This can lead biology to want to offer its own exhaustive and sometimes self-referential “worldview,” considering any discussion of the foundations of being, and therefore of the origin of things, to be superfluous. In reality, when the problem of foundations is closely examined, and biology is beginning to do so as it strives to delve deeply into the origin of DNA, the problem of Logos, rationality, and the meaning of things reemerges, and with it the question of God. The career of a researcher such as Francis Collins is sufficient proof of this."

"Interviewer: What is meant by “theology of credibility”? Tanzella-Nitti: By this expression we mean a theology that reflects on the reasonableness of believing in Revelation, first and foremost in the Revealer par excellence, Jesus of Nazareth. Classical apologetics, which accompanied us until the dawn of the Second Vatican Council, did not have a fully theological status, but developed its arguments mainly on the logical and philosophical side. The first theology of credibility is given to us by the Gospels, when they declare, with St. Luke, that they were written so that we might realize the solidity of the teachings received, or with St. John, that those things were transmitted to us so that we might believe in Jesus Christ and so that, by believing, we might have life in him."

"I believe that fundamental theology should promote unity in the intellectual life of believers by helping them to reflect on the reasons for their faith—certainly with the help of pastoral care and catechesis. Secularism and secularization have an easy time of it when there is weakness of thought, even among believers. The fact that the Christian faith has its foundation in Jesus Christ does not exempt us from looking to philosophy, history or sciences to show our interlocutors that the Christian message does not contradict the knowledge of these other fields of knowledge, but rather reveals their ultimate meaning. A believer who works as an intellectual must be able to explain what Jesus Christ has to do with philosophy, history, medicine, economics, law, and even mathematics, as Monsignor Luigi Giussani loved to repeat."

"To render the Science of Algebra intelligible to pupils whose minds are yet unaccustomed to such studies, is not an easy task. For should the instructor subject every principle, as it is announced, to a rigorous demonstration, he will very probably not be comprehended; while, on the other hand, inconclusive reasoning is worse than none at all."

"It was pleasantly said of him that he had two passions---one for pure mathematics, and the other for the pure Catholic religion."

"...they make no use of tables; but only of the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of certain numbers, of which we do not presently discern the ground, nor to what these numbers refer."

"Science owes to him many important discoveries."

"After Schiaparelli, Respighi was the most prominent Italian astronomer of the nineteenth century."

"I’m an atheist in the sense that I do not believe in God, I do not believe in the afterlife. I believe that the soul is our brain. It’s impossible to scientifically prove either that God exists, or that God does not exist. The idea of God does not convince me. I prefer to believe that there is matter and that matter has the properties we observe. … When I pass away, if I meet God, I will tell him I was wrong."

"I think you can understand time just by the fact that everything, everything changes. Everything ages. You’re born, you die. The living beings as the objects if they are new, then they become old. Even the stones, even in our Earth, aged four and a half billion years, has changed enormously. So we can define time only thanks to the fact that everything changes."

"The working of great administrations is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self-interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought."

"L’oro è quello che abbaglia gli occhi delle donne."

"Prendiam il dolce ognihor che torlo accade, Se ben d’amar alquanto ivi gustiamo; Ch’ al mondo huom mai non è beato a pieno."

"Pochi servidori si trovano che per danari non si corrompano."

"Acque quete fan le cose."

"Il mondo va invecchiando e peggiorando di mano in mano."

"Contrastan le donne per esser vinte."

"Chi ama, si fida in tutto e per tutto della cosa amata."

"Alle spese del compagno non si può imparare."

"Io per mi pensava che in un giovine l’esser innamorato fusse il condimento di tutte le sue virtù, e che se ben alcun fusse una profonda sentina di vitii, Amor fusse bastante a sollevarlo in un momento fino a le stelle."

"L’amor non si paga se non con amore."

"Mercury on its axis turns like the Moon: One side has lasting day, the other night; One side in everlasting fire doth swoon; While th'other hides forever from the light."

"Lagrange... was the first to draw sharply the line of demarcation between physics and metaphysics. The mechanical ideas of Descartes, Leibnitz, Maupertius, and even of Euler, had proved to be more or less hazy and unfruitful from a failure to separate those two distinct regions of thought. Lagrange put an end to this confusion, for no serious attempt has since been made to derive the laws of mechanics from a metaphysical basis."

"The value of his work [Mécanique Analytique] consists in the exposition of a general method by which every mechanical question may be stated in a single algebraic equation. The entire history of any mechanical system, as for example, the solar system, may thus be condensed into a single sentence; and its detailed interpretation becomes simply a question of algebra. No one who has not tried to cope with the difficulties presented by almost any mechanical problem can form a just appreciation of the great utility of such a labor-saving and thought-saving device. It has been well called 'a stupendous contribution to the economy of thought.'"

"Analytic mechanics... was brought to the highest degree of perfection by Lagrange. Lagrange's aim is ('... 1788) to dispose, once and for all, of the reasoning necessary to resolve mechanical problems, by embodying as much as possible of it in a single formula. This he did. Every case... can now be dealt with by a very simple, highly symmetrical and perspicuous schema; and whatever reasoning is left is performed by purely mechanical methods. The mechanics of Lagrange is a stupendous contribution to the economy of thought."

"The questions here dealt with have occupied me since my earliest youth, when my interest for them was powerfully stimulated by the beautiful introductions of Lagrange to the chapters of his Analytic Mechanics..."

"Full use of Lagrange's own made the unification of the varied principles of statistics and dynamics possible—in statistics by the use of the principle of virtual velocities, in dynamics by the use of . This led... to generalized coordinates and to the equation of motion in their "Lagrangian" form... Newton's geometrical approach was now fully discarded; Lagrange's book was a triumph of pure analysis."

"Lagrange, struck with the circumstance that the calculus had never given any inequalities but such as were periodical, applied himself to the investigation of a general question, from which he found by a method peculiar to himself and independent of any approximation, that the inequalities produced by the mutual action of the planets must in effect be all periodical; that the periodical changes are confined within narrow limits; that none of the planets ever has been or ever can be a comet moving in a very eccentric orbit; but that the planetary system oscillates as it were round a medium state from which it never deviates far: that amid all the changes which arise from the mutual actions of the planets, two things remain perpetually the same, viz. the length of the greater axis of the ellipse which the planet describes, and its periodical time round the sun; or, which is the same thing, the mean distance of each planet from the sun and its mean motion remain constant. The plane of the orbit varies, the species of the ellipse and its eccentricity change, but never, by any means whatever, the greater axis of the ellipse, or the time of the entire revolution of the planet. The discovery of this great principle, which we may consider as the bulwark that secures the stability of our system, and excludes all access to confusion and disorder, must render the name of Lagrange for ever memorable in science, and ever revered by those who delight in the contemplation of whatever is excellent and sublime. After Newton's discovery of the elliptic orbits of the planets from gravitation, Langrange's discovery of their periodical inequalities is, without doubt, the noblest truth in physical astronomy, and in respect of the doctrine of final causes, it may truly be regarded as the greatest of all."

"The great masters of modern analysis are Lagrange, Laplace, and Gauss, who were contemporaries. It is interesting to note the marked contrast in their styles. Lagrange is perfect both in form and matter, he is careful to explain his procedure, and though his arguments are general they are easy to follow. Laplace on the other hand explains nothing, is indifferent to style, and, if satisfied that his results are correct, is content to leave them either with no proof or with a faulty one. Gauss is as exact and elegant as Lagrange, but even more difficult to follow than Laplace, for he removes every trace of the analysis by which he reached his results, and studies to give a proof which while rigorous shall be as concise and synthetical as possible."

"It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century."

"Lagrange, in one of the later years of his life, imagined that he had overcome the difficulty [of the parallel axiom]. He went so far as to write a paper, which he took with him to the Institute, and began to read it. But in the first paragraph something struck him which he had not observed : he muttered II faut que fy songe encore, and put the paper in his pocket."

"The mathematician is perfect only in so far as he is a perfect being, in so far as he perceives the beauty of truth; only then will his work be thorough, transparent, comprehensive, pure, clear, attractive and even elegant. All this is necessary to resemble Lagrange."

"Who has studied the works of such men as Euler, Lagrange, Cauchy, Riemann, , and Weierstrass, can doubt that a great mathematician is a great artist? The faculties possessed by such men, varying greatly in kind and degree with the individual, are analogous with those requisite for constructive art. Not every mathematician possesses in a specially high degree that critical faculty which finds its employment in the perfection of form, hi conformity with the ideal of logical completeness; but every great mathematician possesses the rarer faculty of constructive imagination."