Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) was a pioneer in both the figurative and literal sense. Navigational adviser and loyal friend to Sir Walter Ralegh, Harriot took part in the first expedition to colonize Virginia. Not only was he responsible for getting Ralegh's ships safely to harbor in the New World, once there he became the first European to acquire a working knowledge of an indigenous language (he also began a lifelong love of tobacco, which may have been his undoing). Harriot's abilities were seemingly unlimited and nearly awe-inspiring. He was the first to use a telescope to map the moon's craters, and, independently of Galileo, discovered and recorded sunspots. He preceded Newton (whose fame eclipsed his) in his discovery of the properties of the prism. He was arguably the best mathematician of his age, and one of the finest experimental scientists of all time. Yet Harriot has traditionally remained a tantalizingly elusive character. He had no close family to pass down records, and few of his letters survive. Most importantly, he never published his scientific discoveries, and half a century after his death he had all but been forgotten. In recent decades, many (self-styled "Harrioteers") have become obsessed with restoring to Harriot his right place, but Robyn Arianrhod's biography is the first actually to do this, and she has done it the only way it can be done: through his science. Using Harriot's re-discovered manuscripts, Arianrhod illuminates the full extent of his achievements in science and physics, expertly guiding us through what makes them original and important, and the story behind them. Because he hadn't yet polished them for publication, Harriot's papers also proffer unique insight into the scientific process itself. Though his thinking depended on a more natural, intuitive approach than those who followed him, Harriot laid the foundations of what in Newton's time would become modern physics. Arianrhod's biography offers the human face of scientific discovery, a lived example of the way in which science actually progresses. Set against the backdrop of the Elizabethan world with all of its dramas and creative tensions--Harriot's years almost exactly overlap those of Shakespeare's--this biography gives proper due to one of history's most remarkable minds.
"While other historians less literate in science and mathematics might have written Harriot's biography in a different manner, she has provided to us a well-written guide to this mysterious scientist who measured everything during the six productive decades of his life." - Larry E. Tise, East Carolina University and Philadelphia, North Carolina Historical Review
"[A] readable and important book which can only be recommended to introduce Thomas Harriot to a wider audience." - Thomas Sonar, Braunschweig, zbMATH
"I learned much from the many enjoyable hours I spent reading this captivating book. In embarking on this wellcrafted literary work you will soon develop a confident sense that either Harriot is with you in the room, or you are with him on the high seas on Sir Walter Raleigh's Tiger. The elegant writing gracefully guides us past mathematical and scientific hurdles in a joyful time-traveling page-turner that never slows down. When you get to the last page and look back, you will feel that you know the man, a fellow so energetic and so guided by formidable curiosity that you wonder how such a person could possibly have disappeared from history. You will remember this book as a time journey in reverse with the wind in your sails all the way through." - Joseph Mazur, The Mathematical Intelligencer
"Robyn Arianrhod's biography of Thomas Harriot (1560{1621) is well researched and well written, and it will be read with pleasure by scholar and layperson alike." - William R. Shea, Mathematical Reviews Clippings
"this is a marvelous book because of the engaging way it is told, very much unlike a dull biography with an enumeration of facts. Moreover it is also well documented by additional material to be found in the last 100 pages of the book ... On this canvas Arianrhod paints the bubbling emergence of the Scientific Revolution to which Harriot was a silent contributor." - Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society
"The story of Thomas Harriot's life and works, was it not so well documented by such a respected scholar as Dr. Arianrhod, could easily be thought a work of pure fiction - and extravagant, scarcely believable fiction at that. Yet it is all true. That Dr. Arianrhod has devoted the time and effort in bringing him back to us through this absolutely captivating biography is something for which we should all be deeply grateful, and in similar gratitude, we owe it to the memory, indeed, the unrelentingly curious and inquiring spirit, of Thomas Harriot himself, to read it." - The Well-Read Naturalist
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"While other historians less literate in science and mathematics might have written Harriot's biography in a different manner, she has provided to us a well-written guide to this mysterious scientist who measured everything during the six productive decades of his life." - Larry E. Tise, East Carolina University and Philadelphia, North Carolina Historical Review
"[A] readable and important book which can only be recommended to introduce Thomas Harriot to a wider audience." - Thomas Sonar, Braunschweig, zbMATH
"I learned much from the many enjoyable hours I spent reading this captivating book. In embarking on this wellcrafted literary work you will soon develop a confident sense that either Harriot is with you in the room, or you are with him on the high seas on Sir Walter Raleigh's Tiger. The elegant writing gracefully guides us past mathematical and scientific hurdles in a joyful time-traveling page-turner that never slows down. When you get to the last page and look back, you will feel that you know the man, a fellow so energetic and so guided by formidable curiosity that you wonder how such a person could possibly have disappeared from history. You will remember this book as a time journey in reverse with the wind in your sails all the way through." - Joseph Mazur, The Mathematical Intelligencer
"Robyn Arianrhod's biography of Thomas Harriot (1560{1621) is well researched and well written, and it will be read with pleasure by scholar and layperson alike." - William R. Shea, Mathematical Reviews Clippings
"this is a marvelous book because of the engaging way it is told, very much unlike a dull biography with an enumeration of facts. Moreover it is also well documented by additional material to be found in the last 100 pages of the book ... On this canvas Arianrhod paints the bubbling emergence of the Scientific Revolution to which Harriot was a silent contributor." - Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society
"The story of Thomas Harriot's life and works, was it not so well documented by such a respected scholar as Dr. Arianrhod, could easily be thought a work of pure fiction - and extravagant, scarcely believable fiction at that. Yet it is all true. That Dr. Arianrhod has devoted the time and effort in bringing him back to us through this absolutely captivating biography is something for which we should all be deeply grateful, and in similar gratitude, we owe it to the memory, indeed, the unrelentingly curious and inquiring spirit, of Thomas Harriot himself, to read it." - The Well-Read Naturalist
Формат: Скан PDf
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