Pedro Lilienfeld

The acceptance of the heliocentric model of the Solar system proposed by Copernicus in the 16th century involved a long and contentious intellectual battle extending over nearly three centuries. We should, however, also consider and review the even far longer and convoluted path that preceded Copernicus’s breakthrough. That process lasted almost two millennia. Antiquity We…

Background This essay is the sequel to the one entitled “From Aristarchus to Hubble, Humanity’s Quest to Comprehend the Cosmos” and will attempt to cover the century from the 1920s to today in the fields of astronomy, space exploration, astrobiology, astrophysics and cosmology. We will start by reviewing the state of affairs at the waning…

Humanity’s Quest to Comprehend the Cosmos Introduction This is a written complement to a set of slides presented at a class with the above title given in October of 2025 within the framework of the Lexington Community Education. These slides follow this writing (or click here to view them immediately). The contents of this class…

Pedro Lilienfeld Let the higher philosophy reflect, I repeat, and glance backwardto some extent. How far has the knowledge of nature progressed,how much is left, and what may the men of the future expect? Johannes Kepler, 1610 Introduction (written 2026) In the early 2000s I was asked to write a chapter on the history of…