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Antigone The basic conflict in “Antigone” is a distorted understanding of the Justice. Unfortunately, the vengeance and justice can be confused in the minds of some self-centered individuals. Thus, Creon, the king of Thebes, was confident that his punishment of Antigone was justified, because she disobeyed not just the request of her uncle and future father-in-law, but she disrespected the direction of the supreme ruler of the state. Simultaneously, the Gods were not less entitled to punish Creon because he disobeyed the “natural order”, which from their point of view was above all. The consequence of such kind of justice was the death of innocent people, which has always been a case of the collateral damage of vengeance, not a result of justice. Considering that the divine law forbade leaving the body unburied, Antigone demonstrated not only the love towards her dead brother, but respect to the Gods; whereas Creon demonstrated the gross insult to the Gods by forbidding Polynices’ burial and leaving his body to rot. Antigone swore to give her brother a decent burial because she believed that her doing is righteous one and even the threat of death could not stop her. She was not thinking about herself. She knew that the Gods would not forgive those, who had broken their law, and that their punishment would be colossal. Hence, she was not just against the Creon’s wrongdoing; she was trying to prevent much bigger catastrophe in the form of a new dreadful curse of the Gods. Since Creon was the King, the curse could touch not only his family, but his nation. Therefore, Antigone sacrificed herself for a better destiny of her nation. Hence, it makes her a true heroic figure. Antigone focuses on three main questions. To start with, did Polyneices deserve any rituals regarding his burial? Secondly, it poses whether anybody who volunteered to bury him was violating the state and whether such person deserved to face punitive actions. Third, it poses a question regarding the thoughtfulness of Creon’s actions. Creon acted appropriately when he issued the decree that prohibited any person form giving Polyneices any funeral rites. Polyneices acted in betrayal of his own city when he led an alien army to siege the city from which he belonged. His actions deserved punishment and the president of his state had powers to decide the most appropriate punishment. The play establishes the themes of civil defiance, the position of natural laws in the society, citizenship, and family love. Moreover, the theme of fidelity and the position of gods in the society are also established.
Galileo’s Discoveries While observing four spots of light that with the course of the time changed their position around Jupiter, Galileo concluded that they were celestial objects that moved in Jupiter’s orbit. Indeed, those were the 4 brightest of Jupiter’s moons that now called “the Galilean Moons”. This Galileo’s observation proved that Aristotle and Ptolemy’s systems were not perfectly correct ones. Another Aristotle’s belief was that all celestial objects, including the moon, were absolutely perfect in their shape. However, Galileo was able to prove otherwise. By observing through the telescope of 20x magnification, he discovered that the moon’s surface was covered with plains, valleys and mountains in a similar way that the Earth’s surface. It could be only because of collisions with other “imperfect” heavenly bodies. Besides the fact of disproving Aristotle’s theory of perfection, this discovery gave an impulse for emerging the theory of “eventual acceptance”. However, above all, Galileo was an ardent advocate of the theory that the laws of nature have mathematical origin, but not supernatural. Trying to prove his mathematical theory, he experimented with balls on various inclined planes in order to establish with what rate the objects fall toward the Earth. He verified by experiments the isochronal nature of the pendulum. He found that the uniform motion of the body does not affect the processes that occur on the surface. For instance, the objects on a moving vehicle fall similarly as they fall on a motionless one. His discoveries were not only forerunners of Newton’s laws of motion, but had a huge philosophical meaning. The impeccable mathematical interpretation of the physical nature of the objects had finally disproved the concept of anthropomorphism that predominated for centuries. Therefore, it was a revolutionary political and social break in human cognition. It illustrated that science and other dimensions of human life intersected with each other. In other words, things that prevent science from searching for truth also prevent the development of the society. In other words, by separating science from religion, Galileo pointed that scientific knowledge can influence the human understanding of their place in the world. In his opinion, the mankind must be guided only by practical mind in its cognition of the laws of nature; only mathematics, experience and thorough observations can give the mankind correct answers. Galileo is amongst the few who contributed much to the modern science. Albert Einstein held this view and he credited Galileo as the father of science. Galileo’s discoveries about astronomy and his evaluations of the Copernican theory are his greatest legacies. Moreover, he clarified crucial issues such as the dynamics of objects around the earth’s surface and the impact of gravitational forces. He also disputed previous scientific opinions that held that planets were points of light. He posited that planets were disk shaped and the Milky Way is comprised of big stars. Furthermore, his observations confirmed that the moon was rugged with mountains and craters and not as smooth as previously believed. Galileo’s contributions increased the modern scientists understanding of the laws behind the motion of objects. His greatest invention to physics was the discovery of inertia. His contributions aided Newton in inventing the motion laws.
References
Sophocles. (2005). Antigone. Prestwick House, Inc.
Brecht, B. (1994). Galileo. Grove Press.
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