Ordered Universe

New Ordered Universe publication – JOSA 31 (2014)

Grosseteste's rainbow co-ordinates mapped onto perceptual colour plane by H. Smithson — Grosseteste’s rainbow co-ordinates mapped onto perceptual colour plane by H. Smithson

We’re very pleased to announce the publication of our latest collaborative investigation into the rainbow, ‘Color-coordinate system from a 13th-century account of rainbows’ which has come out in the Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 31 (2014), A341-A349. The article explores colour within the 3D framework set out in Grosseteste’s De colore and now links the axes of variation to observable properties of rainbows, as Grosseteste indicates. Continue reading “New Ordered Universe publication – JOSA 31 (2014)”

Ordered Universe at the Royal Society

Tom, Hannah and Giles have been invited to give a public lecture at the Royal Society, London, which will take place this coming Friday, 1.00-2.00 in the History of Science series. The talk is free and open to the public – doors open at 12.30 and places are issued on a first come first served basis.Continue reading “Ordered Universe at the Royal Society”

Durham Workshop: Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th March

The third in the workshop series funded through the AHRC Network Grant ‘Lost Legacies and a Living Past’ takes place tomorrow and Tuesday. We are looking forward to welcoming all of our visitors to Durham, Jack Cunningham from Bishop Grosseteste University, Cecilia Panti, Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, as well as Hannah and the rest of the Durham participants. Jack is organising the next conference for the International Grosseteste Society in Lincoln, July 18th-20th, at which a number of Ordered Universe team members will be speaking, including Cecilia, Neil Lewis, Tom and Giles. Continue reading “Durham Workshop: Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th March”

2014 Grosseteste Conference

2014 Conference.

via 2014 Conference.

A Medieval MultiVerse – Nature Comment

We have had a busy few weeks on the Ordered Universe project, setting up the next workshop which takes place in the coming week (more to come on that), a public lecture to the Royal Society (more to come on that too!) and publications. The whole research team is very pleased that a comment-article, commissioned by Nature has been accepted and will appear in the next fortnight. Tom McLeish was the inspiration, lead and author for the piece, and we are all very grateful to him indeed for putting the ethos,excitement and energy of the project into this forum. Tom reflects at the end of the piece on the vagaries of funding for inter-disciplinary projects such as this one, and the hope that Science Councils might be willing in the future to combine with Arts and Humanities councils in the activity of uncovering and re-discovering the science of the past, reflection on the world on and in which we live, and some of the essential questions of being human: how did the world around us come to be, and what is our place within it. Both specifically and generally, this is a collaborative exercise, and one which provokes questions and response across the disciplines.

Reflections on October

As the turn over of this new year has lead to unavoidable reflections on the previous one, I have had the time to consider some of the highlights of 2013. One of those highlights was unmistakably the Ordered Universe Workshop this October. I have been lucky enough to be on the sidelines of the Grosseteste project for the past two years and it has been a truly enriching experience. ‘Interdisciplinary’ is a buzz word in academia these days, however, the Grosseteste project takes such intellectual exchange to an exciting extreme. In addition, the levels of detailed consideration that I have witnessed in the early meetings served as a master class in how to be qualitatively uncompromising.Continue reading “Reflections on October”

Interdisciplinarity – chances and challenges

It took me some time to realise how rare truly interdisciplinary work is at the research level. For me as an undergraduate student, cross-subject talk within friendship groups is something that I have always taken for granted. Since I have been introduced to the Ordered Universe Project I have learned firstly that only few scholars and scientists collaborate with each other, and secondly that such collaboration bears the potential for a uniquely broad and deep perspective. To see how researchers from humanities and sciences work together in an open-minded, patient and accommodating fashion has been very impressive, as this research methodology allows for an elucidation of Grosseteste’s writings at multiple different levels.Continue reading “Interdisciplinarity – chances and challenges”

Do we live in a universe at all: some thoughts from Mark Robson

John of Sacrobosco's De Sphera — John of Sacrobosco’s De sphera of about 1230, John ‘Holywood’ was an almost direct contemporary of Grosseteste c.1195-c.1256

The Durham Grosseteste Project involves looking at the works of Bishop Grosseteste and trying to understand his ideas in the light of the conceptual background of an ordered universe. Grosseteste understood himself to be playing a role in a divinely ordered hierarchy of creatures. He was within a Grand Plan, a teleologically ordered whole whose aim was to glorify God and to reflect or even image some of God’s glory. To Grosseteste balance and beauty were expected since they reflected the harmony and beauty of God. He looked at light as the primeaval creation, the first stroke of God’s brush as he expressed His Glory.Continue reading “Do we live in a universe at all: some thoughts from Mark Robson”

The week, or so, after Christmas: Hannah at Cambridge

Hannah is talking this afternoon, 9th January, at 4.30 to the Cambridge Philosophical Society, part of a day devoted

to Colour in all of its diversity of meaning, aspects and applications. Hannah’s talk will be on the De iride mapping she has been leading:

‘Colours of the rainbow: A three-dimensional colour space from the thirteenth century’

The event is fee and open to all, and takes place in the Department of Engineering. If you are lucky enough to be around Cambridge, and this afternoon, do drop in.

This is the first of many Ordered Universe events this year: keep your eyes on the blog for more.

It was the week before Christmas…

…and fast becoming a typical, if active, one in the life of a Durham Grosseteste Project member. An unexpected realisation is dawning – that the feel of the project reminds me of other scientific research programmes I have been involved in. I mean that I have the sense of collabrating on a project with a group of colleagues, as I have many times in the past, and that one of them is a 13th century Master to the Oxford Franciscans called Robert Grosseteste.Continue reading “It was the week before Christmas…”