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Gresham College And The Formation Of The Royal Society
The Gresham College group was a loose collection of scientists in England of the 1640s and 1650s, a precursor to the Royal Society of London. Within a few years of the granting of a charter to the Royal Society in 1662, its earlier history was being written and its roots contested. There is still some debate about the effect of other groups on the way the Royal Society came into being. The composition of those other groups is unclear in parts; and the overall historiography of the early Royal Society is still often regarded as problematic. But this group has always been seen as fundamental to the course of events. Both the location and the staff of London's Gresham College, a foundation outside the old universities at which lectures were given for the general public, played significant roles in the events leading up to the charter given to the Royal Society. More accurately, there were at least four identifiable successive groups of virtuosi (as they would have been called at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Scarborough
Sir Charles Scarborough or Scarburgh MP FRS FRCP (29 December 1615 – 26 February 1694) was an English physician and mathematician.Robert L. Martensen, "Scarburgh, Sir Charles (1615–1694)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 200Retrieved 29 December 2015 Upbringing Scarborough was born in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Westminster, in 1615, to Edmund Scarburgh and his wife Hannah ( Colonel Edmund Scarburgh, prominent Virginia colonist, was his brother), and was educated at St Paul's School, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge ( BA, 1637, MA, 1640) and Merton College, Oxford ( MD, 1646). While at Oxford he was a student of William Harvey, and the two would become close friends. Scarborough was also tutor to Christopher Wren, who was his assistant for a time. Royal physician Following the Restoration in 1660, Scarborough was appointed physician to Charles II, who knighted him in 1669; Scarborough attended the king on his deathbed, and was later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both natural philosophy and the scientific method and his works remained influential even in the late stages of the Scientific Revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. He argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature. He believed that science could be achieved by the use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. Although his most specific proposals about such a method, the Baconian method, did not have long-lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a sceptical methodology makes Bacon one of the later founders of the scientific method. His portion of the metho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hartlib Circle
The Hartlib Circle was the correspondence network set up in Western and Central Europe by Samuel Hartlib, an intelligencer based in London, and his associates, in the period 1630 to 1660. Hartlib worked closely with John Dury, an itinerant figure who worked to bring Protestants together. Workings of the Circle Structure J. T. Young writes: At its nexus, it was an association of personal friends. Hartlib and Dury were the two key figures: Comenius, despite their best efforts, always remained a cause they were supporting rather than a fellow co-ordinator. Around them were Hübner, Haak, Pell, Moriaen, Rulise, Hotton and Appelius, later to be joined by Sadler, Culpeper, Worsley, Boyle and Clodius. But as soon as one looks any further than this from the centre, the lines of communication begin to branch and cross, threading their way into the entire intellectual community of Europe and America. It is a circle with a definable centre but an almost infinitely extendable peripher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gabriel Plattes
Gabriel Plattes (c.1600–1644) was an English writer on agriculture and science, and also now recognised as the author of the utopian work '' Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria'', often attributed to Samuel Hartlib under whose name it was published. Life He was one of the earliest advocates in England of an improved system of husbandry, and devoted time and money to practical experiments. He was in poverty at the end of his life and was supported by Hartlib, to whom he left his unpublished papers. Works His ''Treatise of Husbandry'' (1638) concerns both agriculture and the relations of landlord and tenant. His later tracts mainly repeat under new titles information first published in the ''Treatise''. ''A Discoverie of Infinite Treasure'' was an early work in the fields of chemistry, metallurgy and geology. According to Allen Debus Plattes was heavily influenced by William Gilbert and the theory of magnetism. He wrote on the dowsing rod, colour and mineral composit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Pell (mathematician)
John Pell (1 March 1611 – 12 December 1685) was an English mathematician and political agent abroad. Early life He was born at Southwick in Sussex. His father, also named John Pell, was from Southwick, and his mother was Mary Holland, from Halden in Kent. The second of two sons, Pell's older brother was Thomas Pell. By the time he was six, they were orphans, their father dying in 1616 and their mother the following year. John Pell the elder had a fine library, which proved valuable to the young Pell as he grew up. He was educated at Steyning Grammar School and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of 13. During his university career he became an accomplished linguist; even before taking a B.A. degree in 1629, he corresponded with Henry Briggs and other mathematicians. He was promoted by seniority to M.A. in 1630 and taught in the short-lived Chichester Academy set up by Samuel Hartlib. On 3 July 1632 he married Ithamaria Reginald (also rendered as Ithamara or Ithu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marin Mersenne
Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for Mersenne prime numbers, those which can be written in the form for some integer . He also developed Mersenne's laws, which describe the harmonics of a vibrating string (such as may be found on guitars and pianos), and his seminal work on music theory, '' Harmonie universelle'', for which he is referred to as the "father of acoustics". Mersenne, an ordained Catholic priest, had many contacts in the scientific world and has been called "the center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the 1600s" and, because of his ability to make connections between people and ideas, "the post-box of Europe". He was also a member of the Minim religious order and wrote and lectured on theology and philosophy. Life Mersenne w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was a council of divines (theologians) and members of the English Parliament appointed from 1643 to 1653 to restructure the Church of England. Several Scots also attended, and the Assembly's work was adopted by the Church of Scotland. As many as 121 ministers were called to the Assembly, with nineteen others added later to replace those who did not attend or could no longer attend. It produced a new Form of Church Government, a Confession of Faith or statement of belief, two catechisms or manuals for religious instruction ( Shorter and Larger), and a liturgical manual, the '' Directory for Public Worship'', for the Churches of England and Scotland. The Confession and catechisms were adopted as doctrinal standards in the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches, where they remain normative. Amended versions of the Confession were also adopted in Congregational and Baptist churches in England and New England in the seventeenth and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Birch
Thomas Birch (23 November 17059 January 1766) was an English historian. Life He was the son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, and was born at Clerkenwell. He preferred study to business but, as his parents were Quakers, he did not go to the university. Notwithstanding this circumstance, he was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1730 and priest in 1731. As a strong supporter of the Whigs, he gained the favour of Philip Yorke, afterwards Lord Chancellor and first Earl of Hardwicke, and his subsequent preferments were largely due to this friendship. He held successively a number of benefices in different counties, and finally in London. He was noted as a keen fisherman during the course of his lifetime, and devised an unusual method of disguising his intentions. Dressed as a tree, he stood by the side of a stream in an outfit designed to make his arms seem like branches and the rod and line a spray of blossom. Any movement, he argued, would be taken by a fish to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Langtoft
Peter Langtoft, also known as Peter of Langtoft ( fro, Piers de Langtoft; died 1305) was an English historian and chronicler who took his name from the small village of Langtoft in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Langtoft was an Augustinian canon regular at Bridlington Priory who wrote a history of England in Anglo-Norman verse, popularly known as ''Langtoft's Chronicle''. The history narrates the history of England from the legendary founding of Britain by Brutus to the death of King Edward I. The first part of Langtoft's chronicle is translated from Wace's ''Roman de Brut'', and the second part is drawn from a number of sources, including Henry of Huntingdon's ''Historia Anglorum''. The third part is widely considered to be original work by Langtoft, and he includes in it details not recorded elsewhere such as the fate of Gwenllian, daughter of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales. On the whole, the chronicle is virulently anti-Scottish and famously contains nine 'songs', in b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hearne (antiquarian)
Thomas Hearne or Hearn (Latin: ''Thomas Hearnius'', July 167810 June 1735) was an English diarist and prolific antiquary, particularly remembered for his published editions of many medieval English chronicles and other important historical texts. Life Hearne was born at Littlefield Green in the parish of White Waltham, Berkshire, the son of George Hearn, the parish clerk. Having received his early education from his father, he showed such taste for study that a wealthy neighbour, Francis Cherry of Shottesbrooke (c. 1665–1713), a celebrated nonjuror, interested himself in the boy, and sent him to the school at Bray "on purpose to learn the Latin tongue". Soon Cherry took him into his own house, and his education was continued at Bray until Easter 1696 when he matriculated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. At the university, he attracted the attention of Dr John Mill (1645–1707), the principal of St Edmund Hall, who employed him to compare manuscripts and in other ways. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Holder
William Holder FRS (1616 – 24 January 1698) was an English clergyman and music theorist of the 17th century. His most notable work was his widely known 1694 publication ''A Treatise on the Natural Grounds and Principles of Harmony''. Life He studied at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1640. He married Susanna Wren, sister of Christopher Wren, in 1643. In 1662 he received a D.D. Oxon., and was a fellow of the Royal Society in 1663. He became a Canon of St. Paul's in 1672, and served as sub-dean of the Chapel Royal from 1674 until 1689 when he resigned. In 1687 he had been preferred to the rectory of Therfield. A few of his musical compositions survive in the British Library in the Harleian MSS 7338 and 7339. In 1660 at Bletchingdon he taught a deaf mute, Alexander Popham to speak "plainly and distinctly, and with a good and graceful tone". The division of credit for this between Holder and John Wallis John Wallis (; la, Wallisius; ) was an Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
