Today in 1595 Thomas Digges died. He was an astronomer and mathematician, and was raised by the famous scientist/occultist John Dee after his father died. Digges was the first to expound in English on the Copernican system of a sun-centered solar system. He was also the first to postulate on an infinite sized universe filled with infinite stars. At the time, there was this thing called the Dark Sky Paradox which was, to be short, the paradox that you can see stars at night because the sky is dark, but if there are an infinite number of stars all giving off light, the sky shouldn’t be dark, but should be filled with light. Basically, with an infinite amount of stars, space should be light, and not dark.
He also spent time working on the 1572 supernova which confounded everyone as it appeared that a new star was forming in Cassiopeia. He worked on the mathematics of the orbit of the supernova. He was a busy fellow as he also served as a Member of Parliament.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com.
Suggested link:
Episode 084: Looking up at the sky in Tudor England
From the shop:
Andreas Cellarius Copernican Star Chart
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.