The scientific revolution was an important time period that occurred in Europe at the end of the Renaissance period and ended late in the 18th century. This period was a crucial one as many more actual facts instead of beliefs were proven to be true. Advancements were made in many different subjects such as math, astronomy, biology, etc. as many different people started performing experiments in these fields and proving things.
Throughout this time period, people started to question things and think deeper into them unlike years before. People would have different ideas about things that might seem crazy to other people since it was a change in the status quo. Bernard Fontenelle wrote a book during the scientific revolution which was called Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. Throughout this book, Fontenelle expresses his own ideas and opinions on several things in space such as the sun being the center of everything rather than the Earth and extraterrestrial life.
Each of the book’s chapters represents one of the nights that Fontenelle shows his ideas to the Marquise. On the first night, Fontenelle presents his first and most controversial idea. For a very long time up until this time period, people believed in the geocentric model which places the Earth at the center of everything in space and that all the stars, planets, and the Sun orbit the Earth. Fontenelle thinks otherwise and suggests the heliocentric model which places the Sun at the center and that planets and stars orbit that instead. This is the most controversial because people have been believing in the geocentric model for years. Even the Bible supported this model so it would be very hard to say otherwise. People who were very religious and agreed to the heliocentric model would be going against their religion.
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Fontenelle proposes different ways of this to the Marquise. One of the ways he describes is that there are “crystal” spheres beyond the fixed stars that people couldn’t see yet. He states that the spheres needed light to go through them but also be solid. However, due to comets being seen higher than before, the spheres needed to be made of a fluid material. This leads Fontenelle to say that, “Venus and Mercury turn about the Sun, not around the Earth” (Bernard Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, p. 15).
Another example that Fontenelle gives for the heliocentric model is by using Copernicus. He says that, “he plucks up the Earth and sends her far from the center of the universe, where she was placed, and puts the Sun in the center, to whom the honor rightly belongs” (Bernard Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, p. 16). Fontenelle makes it a point that the circles the planets make are larger the farther away they are from the Sun and tries to convince the Marquise of this.
On the second evening, Fontenelle does not talk about the sun being the center anymore but rather that the Moon is like the Earth and that it is inhabited. He almost instantly gets into this by saying, “you won’t be surprised to hear that the Moon is a world like the Earth, and that apparently she’s inhabited” (Bernard Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Words, p. 23). The way that Fontenelle explains this thought and the example he uses is very convincing and the most persuasive of all his ideas. He uses the towns of Paris and Saint-Denis along with their distance to aid him. If someone was in a tower of Paris, they would be able to see structures that are in Saint-Denis, but not any people.
Since the structures are man-made, the people must infer that Saint-Denis has people there even though they can’t be seen because there are many similarities. He then says that the Earth is Paris and the Moon is Saint-Denis. There are similarities on the Moon’s surface too such as, “lands, seas, lakes, soaring mountains, and deep abysses” (Bernard Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, p. 29). Fontenelle does a great job at trying to illustrate this image and convince the Marquise that the Moon is basically another world with other living things on it.
A final idea that Fontenelle brings up and perhaps the most interesting one is about life on all of the other planets which is brought up on the fourth evening. Most of this night is spent guessing what the inhabitants of other planets look like. The Marquise says the people on Venus look like, “a small, black people, sunburnt, full of verve and fire…” (Bernard Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, p. 49).
Fontenelle says that the people on Mercury would, “have no memory, no more than most savages; that they never think deeply on anything; that they act at random and by sudden movements, and that actually Mercury is the lunatic asylum of the Universe.” (Bernard Fontenelle, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, p. 49). This evening that Fontenelle and the Marquise share isn’t one where he tries to convince her of something, but rather a fun one where they speculate what other planet’s humans would look like.
Throughout his book, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, Bernard Fontenelle expresses his ideas and thoughts to the Marquise on several scientific things. These things range from the heliocentric and geocentric model, the Moon being another world like the Earth, life on other planets, and even the immense size of the Universe by having the fixed stars being like suns for other worlds. Fontenelle describes in detail to the Marquise what he thinks. His most controversial belief is the Sun being at the center instead of the Earth and his most persuasive idea is the Moon being another world that is inhabited. Fontenelle had strong beliefs for his time, but in present day his ideas have been proven to be right or wrong.
