Re: Sun (was Re: Intelligence)

[Serge Boisse <boisse@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Clarke wrote:

> WARNING: This is seriously off-topic.
>
> > > (*)Intersting footnote: the discovery that the sun was made of hydrogen
> > > came only five years after an eminent philospher declared that humanity
> > > would _never_ know what stars were made of, and that consequently
> > > scientists should stop trying and listen to philosophers instead.
> >
> > Can you be more specific? Do you recall the name of the philosopher? I
> > think your writing is a very good example for my argumentation course.
> > (Not that I'm saying your argumentation was good or bad, just the way you
> > used same example as counter one.)
>
> I seem to recall that I read this in Cosmos (Carl Sagan's book).  If the
> movers haven't packed up my house by tonight then I'll check.
>
> John

You're right, this was in Cosmos.
In 1844, French philosopher Auguste Comte tried to find an exemple of a
knowledge that could *in essence* never be attaignable by humanity. He choosed
the chemical composition of distant stars, on the basis that they are so far
that human beings could never know what they were made of.
Four years after Compte died, however, spectroscopy was invented and astronomers
obtained spectrums of Sun and distant stars, showing that they were made of
Hydrogen and a new element they called Helium... But it's only when atomic
theory was set up, in the 1930's, that Bode  explained really how stars were
brighting...
Morality : never trust philosophers !

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