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February 11, 2013
and yet it moves
Leo Libertas
Rhodes scholar
Class of 2026
Rhodes House
South Parks Road
Oxford OX1 3RG
United Kingdom
February 14, 2024
Dear teacher,
I was a student in your class the winter of 2012-2013. I'm sure you don't remember me, but after the whirlwind of the last ten years I felt I should send you a note of appreciation for a key concept I learned while under your instruction when I was only six years old.
As you may have heard, I was encouraged to forgo my senior year in high school and attend Harvard University as an exceptionally advanced student.
I finished Harvard last year, and am now continuing my education here at Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar.
As I study the works of the great minds throughout history I am often struck by the kinship I feel to the people who were unafraid to challenge the conventional thinking of their time.
Luminaries like Nicoli Tesla who never gave up his confidence in the theory of alternating electrical current despite the strong argument and popularity of another great mind of his day, Thomas Edison, whose stand with the theory of direct current eventually crumbled.
And the great Copernicus who theorized the earth and other planets revolved around the sun, despite the derision of the world he lived in.
And most of all with Galileo Galilei who proved the theories of Copernicus but was forced to recant by the powerful religious community in 17th century Italy.
(I'm told i was named after GaliLEO.)
And I am struck by sadness as I read instances of the destruction and repression of works of knowledge throughout history: the suppression of many 'dangerous' books by the church of Rome, such as 'On the Nature of Things' by Lucretius Carus; the wholesale murder of polish intellectuals, artists, and writers by the nazi's in 1939; and the suppression of any thinking or way of life other than theirs by the recently defeated taliban.
Yes dear teacher, I have you to thank for my enduring quest for answers that may lie under the suffocating blanket of 'conventional' thinking, and for my educational success to that day when you browbeat me into accepting your rigid definition of 'fingers.'
'Class, how many fingers am i holding up.' you asked, looking for the conventional answer of '10.'
Already, at age six, my mind had leapt years ahead and was considering other possibilities when I answered your innocent question with an unexpected 'eight' and then was reluctant to accept your interpretation. Admittedly, my argument with you and my youthful petulance disrupted the class.
I look back upon that day as the one I joined the ranks of the great thinkers from the countries of my ancestry:
the Polish -- Marie Curie, the great Chopin, Karol Jozef Wojtyla, Albert Sabin, Steve Wozniak.
the Italians -- Lucretius, Galileo, Da Vinci, Machiavelli,
the Jews -- Albert Einstein; Baruch Spinoza, the champion of reason; Sigmund Freud.
and from the Pacific islands: the actors Keanu Reeves and Russell Crowe; Cardinal Pio Taofinuu, and Daniel K. Inouye.
I want you to know that I held no ill feelings toward you then because my mind was preoccupied with the concept of semantics, nor now, having learned through my studies of philosophy that many people compartmentalize the world into black and white, them and us, ten and only ten, because thinking otherwise is beyond the comfort zone of their minds.
I wish you well,
Your former student
Leo Libertas
Oxford, England
...........................................
…Galileo's recantation:
.....that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture -- I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favor, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves: ....
I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.
....................................................
Recantation of Leo Libertas da Louisville, aver sei anni:
To know that we know what we know,
and to know that we do not know what we do not know………
that is true knowledge.
------NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
Posted by ronpaci at February 11, 2013 12:51 PM
