Light, Heat and Sound in Robert Grosseteste's Physics

First Sentence

Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175 – 9 October 1253) was an English philosopher and theologian who became Bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253. For the scientific treatises that he wrote, a wellknown historian of science, Alistair Cameron Crombie, defined Grosseteste "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition". For his work for the church, upon his death Grosseteste was revered as a saint in England, but attempts to have his canonization failed.

Description

Robert Grosseteste (c.1175 – 1253) was one of the most prominent thinkers of the Thirteenth Century. Philosopher and scientist, he was Bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253. He was heavily influenced by Augustine, whose thought permeates his writings; from him, Robert drew his Neoplatonic outlook. However, he also made extensive use of the thought of Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes. As explained in one of his treatise, God is the Eternal Light. God first created ‘forma prima’ and ‘materia prima’. Forma prima is the Lux. Coming from a point-like entity, the light, due to its very nature, diffused itself becoming the dimensional form of the matter. Dragged by the light, the matter expanded into the space to create the sphere of the finite universe. From its spherical boundary, the Lux created the Lumen, the luminosity, which moved inwards, towards the center of the universe where there is the Earth. In a sequence from the outer sphere to the inner one, each of the nine celestial spheres of heavens is created. The innermost is the sphere of the moon, which produces through its own Lumen, the four spheres consisting of fire, air, water and earth. And here, in the part of the world where the four elements of the ancient physics dominate, we have the phenomena on which Grosseteste exercised his science. His medieval physics is the science of Nature, of which we will discuss in this book. This science is quite different from the Galilean physics. However, in the scientific treatises written by Grosseteste, we find some features preparing the born of the new physics that produced the Galilean revolution and the Newtonian mechanics. This is the reason why Robert Grosseteste, English statesman, philosopher and scientist, is defined by Alistair Cameron Crombie as the real founder of the tradition of the scientific thought in Oxford. In this book Sparavigna proposes a discussion of this Grosseteste’s physics, in particular that which in described in his treatises on light, heat and sound.

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