Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven
The Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens is the work of Immanuel Kant, which he wrote in 1755 and published anonymously.
Content
According to Kant's idea of our solar system is a miniature version of the observable stellar systems, such as the Milky Way and other galaxies. So come and go in his opinion planetary systems and star systems periodically from a nebula, while the individual planets condense independent. With this theory he comes to today's ideas about the cosmogony closer than his contemporary Pierre- Simon Laplace (1796 ). Nevertheless, both theories are often summarized as Kant -Laplace theory of the origin of the Solar System ( Cosmogony ).
The English astronomer Thomas Wright (1711-1786) had represented in his book An original theory or new hypothesis of the Universe (1750 ) hypothesis, the visible band of the Milky Way in the sky put a rotating disk of stars, which fall on the basis of Newtonian law of gravitation have formed. Kant elaborated on this theory and concluded that such a world island - today one speaks of galaxies - from a sufficiently large distance a circular or depending on the viewing angle of the elliptical-shaped cloud of mist would like. He concludes from the observation already known at that time correctly, that the universe include many island universes and therefore must be much larger than it corresponded to the imagination of his contemporaries. By direct measurements, this could only be proved by Edwin Hubble in the 1920s. In the third part of Scripture, from the inhabitants of the heavenly bodies, Kant developed a theory of extraterrestrial life.
Expenditure
- Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, or attempt by the Constitution and the mechanical origin of the world building dealt with according to Newtonian principles. Petersen, Königsberg and Leipzig 1755. Digitized and full text in German Text Archive
An annotated edition of the original text:
- Immanuel Kant: Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. with epilogue (pp. 147-212 ) by Jürgen Hamel, 4 ext. Edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, 2009 ( Ostwald classic of exact sciences 12)