Erasmus Darwin

Erasmus Darwin (December 12,1731 – April 18,1802) trained as a physician and wrote extensively on medicine and botany, as well as poetry. He lived in Birmingham and Lichfield, England. He was one of the founder members of the Lunar Society. He was a member of the Darwin-Wedgwood family, most famously including his grandson, Charles Darwin.

Big Bang and Big Crunch Cosmological Theories

Contemporary literature dated the cosmological theories of the Big Bang and Big Crunch to the 19th and 20th centuries, however Erasmus Darwin had documented them much earlier. Here is a passage from Darwin's The Botanic Garden, A Poem in Two Parts: Part 1, The Economy of Vegetation, 1791:

Related Topics:
Big Bang - Big Crunch

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Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime,

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Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;

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Near and more near your beamy cars approach,

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And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; -

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Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,

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Frail as your silken sisters of the field!

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Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,

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Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,

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Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,

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And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!

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- Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,

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Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,

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Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,

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And soars and shines, another and the same.

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