Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Thomas Harriot by Robyn Arianrhod - Available

Thomas Harriot

A Life in Science

by Robyn Arianrhod
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Read a sample Read a sample
1 of 1 copy available
As Robyn Arianrhod shows in this new biography, the most complete to date, Thomas Harriot was a pioneer in both the figurative and literal sense. Navigational adviser and loyal friend to Sir Walter Ralegh, Harriot—whose life was almost exactly contemporaneous to Shakespeare's—took part in the first expedition to colonize Virginia in 1585. Not only was he responsible for getting Ralegh's ships safely to harbor in the New World, he was also the first European to acquire a working knowledge of an indigenous language from what is today the US, and to record in detail the local people's way of life. In addition to his groundbreaking navigational, linguistic, and ethnological work, Harriot was the first to use a telescope to map the moon's surface, and, independently of Galileo, recorded the behavior of sunspots and discovered the law of free fall. He preceded Newton in his discovery of the properties of the prism and the nature of the rainbow, to name just two more of his unsung "firsts." Indeed many have argued that Harriot was the best mathematician of his age, and one of the finest experimental scientists of all time. Yet he has remained an elusive figure. He had no close family to pass down records, and few of his letters survive. Most importantly, he never published his scientific discoveries, and not long after his death in 1621 had all but been forgotten. In recent decades, many scholars have been intent on restoring Harriot to his rightful place in scientific history, but Arianrhod's biography is the first to pull him fully into the limelight. 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 scientific and cultural achievements, expertly guiding us through what makes them original and important, and the story behind them. Harriot's papers provide unique insight into the scientific process itself. Though his thinking depended on a more natural, intuitive approach than those who followed him, and who achieved the lasting fame that escaped him, Harriot helped lay the foundations of what in Newton's time would become modern physics. Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science puts a human face to scientific inquiry in the Elizabethan and Jacobean worlds, and at long last gives proper due to the life and times of one of history's most remarkable minds.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 4, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780190271879

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780190271879
      • File size: 3596 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from March 15, 2019
      In a largely harmonious meld of biography and science writing, Arianrhod (Seduced by Logic: �milie Du Ch�telet, Mary Somerville and the Newtonian Revolution, 2012, etc.) furthers the drive to resurrect the reputation of English mathematician Thomas Harriot (1560-1621).The author, a research fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, writes with the authority of a distinguished professor, placing Harriot's achievements in the context of his era and of the evolution of science. Early on, he worked in navigational theory and was indispensable to ventures to the New World mounted by Sir Walter Raleigh; Harriot was especially adept at interacting with native peoples. Apart from astronomy and optics, he soon branched out into the then-unnamed studies of ethnology, linguistics, and physics, his questing mind and new mathematical approaches in some ways anticipating Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, and even Newton. Sadly, until recently, Harriot's name and contributions, many of them eminently practical, had been all but lost to history, largely because of his failures to publish many of his findings (often for valid reasons). Arianrhod does not attempt "retrofitting Harriot into a celebrity star system," which she regards as misguided. However, she demonstrates how he was on equal footing with giants, especially in his gift for employing novel approaches to recognizing general patterns and devising solutions. Filling in the gaps of a transitional era with deep background, the author alternates between straight histories and a close examination of Harriot's calculations, experiments, and theories. Although designed for a general audience, readers must be prepared to wade through tables and formulae better grasped by fellow mathematicians. Nonetheless, the richness of biographical and historical detail more than compensates for the effort. The book is almost as much a biography of Raleigh, Harriot's longtime patron and friend, who emerges as a complex but remarkable man, and of Raleigh's formidable wife, Bess.A significant achievement that builds on previous works and takes the next step in establishing Harriot's genius.

      COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading
Check out what's being checked out right now