Archive for Era – Renaissance
You are browsing the archives of Era – Renaissance.
1408 – Yongle Encyclopedia
The Yongle encyclopedia was an attempt to compile all knowledge available to the Ming Dynasty empire of China in 1408. Over two thousand scholars spent four years compiling the work, which was commissioned by the Yongle emperor. The finished product of 917,480 pages was bound into over eleven thousand volumes, most of which have been […]
1646 – Leibniz – bio
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1646 and became known primarily for his contributions to philosophy and mathematics but was also accomplished in many other fields. He created the modern binary number system that is used by computers and at the same time as Newton, invented calculus. He invented the mathematical sign […]
1663 – friction electric generator
In 1663, Otto von Guericke invented the first known generator that produced electricity through friction by rubbing a pad against a large ball of sulphur. PRECURSOR: -0624 – Thales 1269 – Epistola de Magnete – Peregrinus 1600 – de Magnete – Gilbert SUBSEQUENT: 1737 – Galvani (born) 1745 – Volta 1746 – Leyden jar 1752 […]
1627 – Boyle – bio
Robert Boyle was born in 1627 in Ireland and was known primarily as a chemist and his formulation that is called, “Boyle’s Law”. This describes the inverse relationship between the pressure and the volume of a gas. Boyle discovered that sound does not travel in the absence of air but that light does. His work […]
1509 – Telesio – bio
Bernardino Telesio was born in 1509 in Cosenza, in Italy. He studied at Padua University, then spent some time in a Benedictine monastery. He was critical of the abstract reasoning in the philosophy of Aristotle, insisting we should focus instead on empirical evidence. He wrote a nine volume collection called, “On the Nature of Things […]
1635 – Robert Hooke – bio
Robert Hooke was born in 1635 on the Isle of Wight in England. He was known as an architect and philosopher, but made contributions in many fields. He discovered Hookes Law of elasticity which describes the compression and extension of springs. He collected observations made with magnifying lenses, of both small objects and distant objects, […]
1514 – Andreas Vesalius – bio
Vesalius was born as Andries van Wesel in Brussels, the Netherlands, in 1514. He is known for advancing the medical understanding of human anatomy and published a landmark study, “De Humani Corporis Fabrica” (On the Fabric of the Human Body). Vesalius discovered that the research of Galen had been based on animal rather than human […]
1533 – Zabarella – bio
Giacomo (Jacopo) Zabarella was born in Padua, Italy in 1533. He attended the University of Padua, obtained a PhD in philosophy there, taught philosophy there, and eventually died in Padua. He was primarily known for his contributions to philosophy and logic, setting the standard for other philosophers during the Renaissance in Europe. PRECURSOR: -0384 – […]
1561 – Francis Bacon – bio
Francis Bacon was born in London, England in 1561 and while he was known as an author, a lawyer, a statesman and philosopher, he also is credited with creating a methodology for scientific inquiry. Bacon’s primary work, the “Instauratio Magna” (Great Restoration), was never finished but was outlined in six parts to follow a biblical […]
1473 – Copernicus – bio
Nicolaus Copernicus was born in 1473 in Poland. He is known as the first astronomer to claim that the Sun is at the center of the solar system with the Earth rotating about it, instead of the other way around. Copernicus studied at the Universities of Bologna and Padua in Italy and studied under a […]
