Astronomy
Johannes Kepler formulated the three laws of planetary motion. He used Tycho Brahe's Tables to prove the Laws of Planetary Motion.Kepler believed that science and religion work together. He was a pious Lutheran whose writings include theology. He said, “God is the beginning and end of scientific research and striving.”
"I wanted to become a theologian," he wrote. "For a long time I was restless. Now, however, behold how through my effort God is being celebrated in astronomy."
Kepler said, "We astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature."
"I wanted to become a theologian," he wrote. "For a long time I was restless. Now, however, behold how through my effort God is being celebrated in astronomy."
Kepler said, "We astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature."
Chemistry
Michael Faraday worked on chemistry until 1821 when he began experiments with electricity. He was interested in the work of François Arago and André-Marie Ampère who established a relation between electricity and magnetism. Faraday published on the conversion of electrical into mechanical energy in the Quarterly Journal of Science in October 1821. The mathematical theories developed by another Christian, James Clerk Maxwell, relied on the laws Faraday had established by his experiments.Genetics
The "father "of modern Genetics was Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian Catholic monk. In a sermon, he preached the following homily, seamlessly intertwining scriptural interpretation with his scientific investigations:
“Jesus appeared to the disciples after the Resurrection in various forms. He appeared to Mary Magdalene so that they might take him for a gardener. Very ingeniously these manifestation of Jesus is to our minds difficult to penetrate. He appears as a gardener. The gardener plants seedlings in prepared soil. The soil must exert a physical and chemical influence so that the seed of the plant can grow. Yet this is not sufficient. The warmth and light of the sun must be added, together with rain, in order that growth may result.
“The seed of supernatural life, of sanctifying grace, cleanses from sin, so preparing the soul of man, and man must seek to preserve this life by his good works. He still needs the supernatural food, the body of the Lord, which received continually, develops and brings to completion of the life. So natural and supernatural must unite to the realization of the holiness to the people. Man must contribute his minimum work of toil, and God gives the growth.
“Truly, the seed, the talent, the grace of God is there, and man has simply to work, take the seeds to bring them to the bankers. So that we ‘may have life, and abundantly.’”
Physics
The "father" of the Big Bang theory of universe expansion was Georges Lemaître, a Roman Catholic priest. Newspapers described Lemaître as the leader of the new cosmological physics, and Einstein recommended Lemaître for the Francqui Prize, the most prestigious Belgian scientific distinction, which King Léopold III awarded to him in 1934.
Lemaître viewed religion and science as distinct ways of interpreting the world, both of which are equally valid. Lemaître once said, “God cannot be reduced to the role of a scientific hypothesis.”
He wrote, “Once you realize that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science, the old controversy between religion and science vanishes."
Lemaître wrote, "We may speak of this event as of a beginning. I do not say a creation. Physically it is a beginning in the sense that if something happened before, it has no observable influence on the behavior of our universe, as any feature of matter before this beginning has been completely lost by the extreme contraction at the theoretical zero. Any preexistence of the universe has a metaphysical character...The question if it was really a beginning or rather a creation, something started from nothing, is a philosophical question which cannot be settled by physical or astronomical considerations."
He said, “The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics; but, being necessary for salvation, the doctrine is stated in the Bible. If the theory of relativity had also been necessary for salvation, it would have been revealed to Saint Paul or to Moses.”
Computers
The "mother" of combinatorial identities for computers was a Roman Catholic sister. Her name was Mary Celine Fasenmyer. The research she did during her doctoral studies gained the attention of mathematicians in the early 1990s when advances in computer technology made her research practical.
Sister Celine was told by her community of nuns to go to the University of Michigan for her doctorate, which she did in 1942, earning her degree in 1946. Her thesis - "Some Generalized Hypergeometric Polynomials" - was written under the direction of Dr. Earl D. Rainville who dedicated a chapter in his textbook entitled, "Sister Celine's Technique".
Sister Celine was told by her community of nuns to go to the University of Michigan for her doctorate, which she did in 1942, earning her degree in 1946. Her thesis - "Some Generalized Hypergeometric Polynomials" - was written under the direction of Dr. Earl D. Rainville who dedicated a chapter in his textbook entitled, "Sister Celine's Technique".
Sister Caline's research is the intellectual progenitor of the computerized methods used to prove hypergeometric identities. The Israeli mathematician Doron Zeilberger recognized that her method can be adapted to prove such identities. The hypergeometric polynomials she studied are called Sister Celine's polynomials.
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