Talk:Francis Godwin

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I was fascinated to learn that Francis Godwin influenced swifts, which, according to the link, are birds very similar to swallows. Would those be the African swallows or the European swallows? Their respective airspeeds (laden and unladen) we leave for another article.

It is evident that the correct link refers to Jonathan Swift! And the "swift messenger" is the fast messenger. But nevertheless, there are birds involved: pigeons for transporting messages. --Siffler

In view of his protagonist Domingo Gonsales' ability to train "Gansas" (mythological swans) to fly to the moon, perhaps Godwin did have some influence on swifts? At least mythological ones ....

It might also be worth pointing out that the text of "The Man in the Moone" is available here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041208211657/purple.home.texas.net/etexts/Moone/contents.htm

It's an enjoyable read and testifies to Godwin's breadth of vision, though his mechanical genius was perhaps not quite up to Leonardo's standard! I would question whether Godwin's astronomy was fully Copernican: he takes the then dangerous position of asserting through Gonzales that the Earth rotates, but still has it appear to be (as in the then standard medieval view) in the centre of the universe.

Orbitalforam (talk) 08:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)