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The First Scientist book cover
The First Scientist
A Life of Roger Bacon
2003
First Published
3.67
Average Rating
268
Number of Pages
Legend may have transformed the thirteenth-century English friar Roger Bacon into the Faust-like sorcerer Doctor Mirabilis, but he stands today in high regard as Europe's first great pioneer in the field of science. Bypassing the vicissitudes of Bacon's reputation, this definitive new biography by science writer Brian Clegg places the medieval monastic firmly in the turbulent and contentious intellectual atmosphere of his day. It also finds in Bacon's attempt to reconcile, or at least acknowledge, the variant methods and means of science and theology a quest that places him well ahead of his intellectual times. For Bacon brought to his inquiry into the nature of things his gifts not only as a lucid observer of natural phenomena, rigorous experimenter, empirical thinker, and gifted mathematician but as a theologian and philosopher as well. In his search for truth he would, like Galileo, suffer imprisonment rather than sacrifice his intellectual integrity. From Bacon's popularity as a teacher at Oxford and Paris, through his innovations in calendar reform, his experiments in optics, his designs for a flying machine, and, most famously, his development of the principle of inductive experimental science, this illuminative volume unfolds the story of a brilliant career.
Avg Rating
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Author

Brian Clegg
Brian Clegg
Author · 52 books

Brian's latest books, Ten Billion Tomorrows and How Many Moons does the Earth Have are now available to pre-order. He has written a range of other science titles, including the bestselling Inflight Science, The God Effect, Before the Big Bang, A Brief History of Infinity, Build Your Own Time Machine and Dice World. Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business. Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.

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