Friday, 25 September 2009
Enlightenment: Follow Up
Now that you have all had a chance to post a short response to our introductory article on the Enlightenment, it's time to dig a little deeper. In class you have been assigned one "enlightenment thinker" to focus your research on. Please respond with a post on that particular person, and also provide (in the title) a link to a reliable source that you used in your research.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/smith.html
ReplyDeleteFor my research on a person who influenced the enlightenment I had Adam Smith. Adam Smith was a Scottish philosopher who became famous for his book, “The Wealth of Nations” which was written in 1776. This book had great influence on the modern ideas of economics and individual freedoms. Smith explained the idea of the free market, which still is true today. Often he used the expression “The invisible hand” which he used to explain how self-intrest guides the most efficient use of recources, and how the public would benefit as a result. In addition, he used the example of pins to explain division of labor, in this example he stated that one worker could produce one pin a day and that would be if he was lucky, but 10 workers who each had their own specialized tasks could produce upwards of 48,000 pins in a single day, or 4,800 per worker. Adam Smith was a very charitable man and had devoted a large part of his income to charitys, however this was not discovered until his death in 1790 after an illness in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Johannes Kepler is known for his discovery that the orbits which the earth and the other planets of the solar system travel around the sun are elliptical, or oval, in shape. He used to teach astronomy at the university in Austria and when he was there he talked to two other great astronomers Galileo and Tycho Brahe. He then wanted to “construct a new theory that will explain the motions of all the planets.” After six years he realized that mars followed an elliptical orbit at a speed that varies according to the planets distance from the sun. In 1609 “The New Astronomy” was published. His three principles were known as Kepler’s Laws. The first one was that the path of every planet in its motion about the sun forms an ellipse, with the sun at one focus, the second law is that the speed of a planet in its orbit varies so that a line joining it with the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times and the third is that the squares of the planets’ periods of revolution are proportional to the cubes of the planets mean distances around the sun. He invented the present day form of an astronomical telescope. He died in November on the 15th in 1630.
ReplyDeletehttp://school.eb.com/comptons/article-9275255?query=Johannes%20Kepler&ct=
Voltaire was a very influential writer from his time. He believed in separation of church and state. This means that the government should have no religious stance and it shouldn't fund or try to destroy any religion. The government cannot display a fondness for any religion either. This would keep the government somewhat fair. Voltaire also believed that people should be allowed to practice any religion they want to. His beliefs were the base for our current freedom of religion law. Voltaire is actually a pen name, and his real name was Francois Marie. He died at the age of 83 after returning from his exile, but there was too much excitement when he was welcomed back to Paris as a hero.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/voltaire.html
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