Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds

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Front page of 1701 edition

Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (French:Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes) was a book by a French writer Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, published in 1686. It offered an explanation of the heliocentric model of the Universe, suggested by Nicolaus Copernicus in his 1543 work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. It is Fontenelle's most famous work and is considered to be one of the first major works of the Enlightenment Age.

Unlike many of scientific works of its time, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds was written not in Latin, but in French and is notable as one of the first books to attempt an explanation of scientific theories in popular language. In the preface, Fontenelle addresses female readers and suggests that the offered explanation should be easily understood even by those without scientific knowledge. This move has been praised by some of modern feminist critics as admitting women's intelligence in scientific matters.^[1] The book itself is presented as a series of conversations between a gallant philosopher and a marquise, who walk in the latter's garden at night and gaze at stars. The philosopher explains the heliocentric model and also muses on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. At the same time, Fontenelle avoided challenging the Catholic Church and its view of the world.

The book was very well received both in France and elsewhere, and was regularly published. In 1691, Fontenelle was elected to Academie Francaise.^[2]

The first English translation was compounded by Aphra Behn in 1688 under the title A Discovery of New Worlds. Antiokh Kantemir translated it into Russian in 1730, although the translation was only published in a censored edition in 1740, due to objections from Russian Orthodox Church.

[edit] Footnotes

^ Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. By Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle. Translated by H. A. Hargreaves. Edited by Nina Rattner Gelbart. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1990.
^ "Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier, sieur de." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 3 Mar. 2007 [1].