A Level Maths Lecture - Dr Piers Bursill-Hall

Earlier today, I attended a very interesting A Level Maths Lecture with the speakers Dr Piers Bursill-Hall The talks were very interesting and gave a wide range of insights into the uses and application of mathematics; from how the Heliocentric Model was proposed and developed.

Dr Piers Bursill-Hall

Being Cambridge University's most entertaining Maths Lecturer; his talk was very engaging. He commented on how "Copernicus was wrong, and that even his mathematics was wrong." 

Firstly, he announced that Copernicus was most definitely not the first person to invent the Heliocentric Model, and that really he was one of many to have looked at it by his time. It was said that Copernicus also did not only have one theory on the model; but actually he had two. He stated that the first model was that the physical representation of the solar system was with the Sun in the centre, and that all the planets orbited around the Sun, with the stars furthest away. Then there was the second model that went into mathematical detail into how the planets and moons were not actually in a singular elliptical orbit at all, but orbits upon orbits upon orbits. It was said that in the model there was roughly 150 different orbits! 

Finally, the Romans had started to believe in the idea of Christianity. However it was easy to make a link between both the Sun being in the centre of the Solar System and God. An analogy was described that if you imagine a man living in a cave. He has lived there for his whole life and has not been exposed to much light at all. Suddenly the man is exposed to the outdoors and he becomes blinded by the suns light. As the man becomes to adapt to the new surroundings and be able to see things, we will see shapes, flowers, grass and so on. Eventually he will be able to see the sun, and that the sun is the last thing that he will see because it brings light to everything else and it is the most powerful being. This related the centre of the Heliocentric Model to be the most powerful, and now the link between God and the Sun had been made.