Far-Out! Getting to Know the Neighbours

The step from earth to the sun is a relatively small one but from the sun to the nearest star is an enormous leap! It stretches us in many ways. The distances are enormous. The closest star is about 200 000 AU away from us. The intellectual leap that spans this vastness is this:

The laws of physics on the earth are the same as those on the sun and those on the nearest and most distant of stars

This is no small step and indeed was impossible under Aristotelian and possibly naive Christian thinking of the medieval era. The "Heavens declare the glory of God" - why should they be as base and corrupt as the earth?

I hope to convince you that the intellectual journey that we are about to embark on is in itself God glorying. The vastness and yet apparent "knowableness" of the universe is something that I am personally very thankful for. I accept the assumption that we made at the outset of today's lecture.

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