Edgar Allen Poe explains it all.
Brent
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In 1848, Edgar Allan Poe first proposed the Big Bang theory, black holes, the Big Crunch,
and the correct solution to Olbers' paradox, in a "prose poem" called Eureka.
Good discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka:_A_Prose_Poem
Complete text:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32037/32037-h/32037-h.htm
Actually, it seems likely Poe intended the work as burlesque or satire, making fun of
religion, philosophy, and science, among other things. On Aristotle and Francis Bacon
(parenthesis is in Poe's original):
"...long, long ago, in the night of Time, there lived a Turkish philosopher called Aries
and surnamed Tottle.” [Here, possibly, the letter-writer means Aristotle; the best names
are wretchedly corrupted in two or three thousand years.] “The fame of this great man
depended mainly upon his demonstration that sneezing is a natural provision, by means
of[11] which over-profound thinkers are enabled to expel superfluous ideas through the
nose; but he obtained a scarcely less valuable celebrity as the founder, or at all events
as the principal propagator, of what was termed the /de/ductive or /à priori/ philosophy.
... Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme, until the advent of one Hog, surnamed ‘the
Ettrick shepherd,’ who preached an entirely different system, which he called the /à
posteriori/ or /in/ductive."
kerry
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