Concept Blog #1

The Renaissance In My Daily Life

I think the Renaissance is reflected as a foundation in many of the things around me. I started by thinking about the major contributions of the Renaissance. Where would these concepts be readily apparent? Art was one of the changes that defined this time and one popular form was the fresco. A very famous fresco was the ceiling of Sistine Chapel and the “Creation of Adam”, painted by Michelangelo.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Creation of Adam

While frescoes are still used today I wondered what the modern equivalent might be. In the Sistine Chapel, the ideas was to tell a story through pictures. Today, I see that same concept when I look at graffiti. Here is one found in Arizona:

This painting is still trying to create a message. It quotes Hunter S. Thompson: “Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent.” So here we have two artists both carrying a message from a written text. One the Bible and other “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

I also thought of Natural Philosophy and where that may be apparent in its carryover. I recently read “The Little Book of String Theory” by Steven S. Gubser. It goes outside of observable scientific evidence and builds on theoretical probability. So how does this relate to the Renaissance? Well, Galileo provided us Galilean Relativity, where motion is relative to speed, which required Einstein to develop an explanation for relativity in relation to things moving at the speed of light, where light represents the limitations of speed. Here is a quick explanation:

In turn, quantum mechanics and string theory build further on motion and relatively. It is also a reminder of how far we’ve come in science and what the possibilities still are.