Baruch Spinoza. Biography[edit] Family and community origins[edit] Spinoza's ancestors were of Sephardic Jewish descent, and were a part of the community of Portuguese Jews that had settled in the city of Amsterdam in the wake of the Alhambra Decree in Spain (1492) and the Portuguese Inquisition (1536), which had resulted in forced conversions and expulsions from the Iberian peninsula.[11] Attracted by the Decree of Toleration issued in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht, Portuguese "conversos" first sailed to Amsterdam in 1593 and promptly reconverted to Judaism.[12] In 1598 permission was granted to build a synagogue, and in 1615 an ordinance for the admission and government of the Jews was passed.[13] As a community of exiles, the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam were highly proud of their identity.[13] Spinoza's father, Miguel (Michael), and his uncle, Manuel, then moved to Amsterdam where they resumed the practice of Judaism. 17th-century Holland[edit] Early life[edit] Expulsion from the Jewish community[edit]
Christiaan Huygens. Christiaan Huygens, FRS (/ˈhaɪɡənz/ or /ˈhɔɪɡənz/; Dutch: [ˈɦœy̆ɣə(n)s]) (Latin: Hugenius) (14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a prominent Dutch mathematician and scientist. He is known particularly as an astronomer, physicist, probabilist and horologist. Early life[edit] Portrait of Huygens' father (center) and his five children (Christiaan at right). Christiaan Huygens was born on 14 April 1629 in The Hague, into a rich and influential Dutch family,[3][4] the second son of Constantijn Huygens. Christiaan was named after his paternal grandfather.[5][6] His mother was Suzanna van Baerle. She died in 1637, shortly after the birth of Huygens' sister.[7] The couple had five children: Constantijn (1628), Christiaan (1629), Lodewijk (1631), Philips (1632) and Suzanna (1637).[8] In 1644 Huygens had as his mathematical tutor Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampioen, who set the 15-year-old a demanding reading list on contemporary science.[11] Descartes was impressed by his skills in geometry.[4] In France[edit]
Robert Hooke. Robert Hooke FRS (/hʊk/; 28 July [O.S. 18 July] 1635 – 3 March 1703) was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath. His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but eventually becoming ill and party to jealous intellectual disputes.
These issues may have contributed to his relative historical obscurity. Robert Gunther's Early Science in Oxford, a history of science in Oxford during the Protectorate, Restoration and Age of Enlightenment, devotes five of its fourteen volumes to Hooke. Hooke studied at Wadham College during the Protectorate where he became one of a tightly knit group of ardent Royalists led by John Wilkins. Here he was employed as an assistant to Thomas Willis and to Robert Boyle, for whom he built the vacuum pumps used in Boyle's gas law experiments. Life and works Early life Oxford. Isaac Newton. Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (/ˈnjuːtən/;[8] 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727[1]) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution.
His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the invention of infinitesimal calculus. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum.
He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Evangelista Torricelli. Evangelista Torricelli (Italian: [evandʒeˈlista torriˈtʃɛlli] listen ) (1608–1647) was an Italian physicist and mathematician, best known for his invention of the barometer. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Torricelli was born on 15 October in 1608 in Faenza in the Province of Ravenna, then part of the Papal States, the firstborn child of Gaspare Torricelli and Caterina Angetti.
His father was a textile worker and the family was very poor. Seeing his talents, his parents sent him to be educated under the care of his uncle, Jacobo, a Camaldolese monk, who first ensured that his nephew was given a sound basic education. He then entered young Torricelli into a Jesuit College in 1624, possibly the one in Faenza itself, to study mathematics and philosophy until 1626, by which time his father, Gaspare, had died. Career[edit] Noi viviamo sommersi nel fondo d'un pelago d'aria. Death[edit] Torricelli's work in physics[edit] Barometer[edit] Torricelli's Law[edit] Cause of wind[edit] Selected works[edit] Robert Boyle. Robert Boyle, FRS, (25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Irish 17th-century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor. Born in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland, he was also noted for his writings in theology. Although his research clearly has its roots in the alchemical tradition, Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method.
He is best known for Boyle's law,[2] which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system.[3][4] Among his works, The Sceptical Chymist is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry. Biography[edit] Early years[edit] Boyle was born in Lismore Castle, in County Waterford, Ireland, the seventh son and fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork and Catherine Fenton. Middle years[edit] Archimedes Project Page Viewer.