Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home 		English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Roger Bacon   /rˈɑdʒər bˈeɪkən/   Listen
proper noun
Roger Bacon, Bacon  n.  Roger Bacon. A celebrated English philosopher of the thirteenth century. Born at or near Ilchester, Somersetshire, about 1214: died probably at Oxford in 1294. He is credited with a recognition of the importance of experiment in answering questions about the natural world, recognized the potential importance of gunpowder and explosives generally, and wrote comments about several of the physical sciences that anticipated facts proven by experiment only much later. "The Franciscan monk, Roger Bacon (c. 1214 - 1294) was an important transitional figure in chemistry as he was trained in the alchemical tradition, but introduced many of the modern concepts of experimental science. Bacon believed that experiment was necessary to support theory, but for him the theory as presented in the Bible was true and the experiment only underlined that truth. One of Bacon's lasting contributions was his references to gunpowder, bringing this discovery to the general attention of literate Europeans. Gunpowder had been known for centuries in China, being used for fireworks and incendiary grenades. Gunpowder is a simple mixture of charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate (known generally as saltpeter). Saltpeter is a major component of guano (bird droppings) and may be recovered from privies where it will crystallize. By 1324, Europeans had discovered the art of using gunpowder to fire a projectile, marking the end of the period of castles and knights in armor." "Roger Bacon was Born at or near Ilchester, Somersetshire, about 1214: died probably at Oxford in 1294. He was educated at Oxford and Paris (whence he appears to have returned to England about 1250), and joined the Franciscan order. In 1257 he was sent by his superiors to Paris where he was kept in close confinement for several years. About 1265 he was invited by Pope Clement IV. to write a general treatise on the sciences, in answer to which he composed his chief work, the "Opus Majus." He was in England in 1268. In 1278 his writings were condemned as heretical by a council of his order, in consequence of which he was again placed in confinement. He was at liberty in 1292. Besides the "Opus Majus," his most notable works are "Opus Minus," "Opus Tertium", and "Compendium Philosophiae". See Siebert, "Roger Bacon", 1861; Held, "Roger Bacon's Praktische Philosophie", 1881; and L. Schneider, "Roger Bacon," 1873." " Dr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon's Opus Majus is "the encyclopedia and Novam Organon of the Thirteenth Century, a work equally wonderful with regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with which the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of the work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which were yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a prospect of the vast advantages which it offered. In the development of this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the most complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and improvements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of the principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading purposes it would have been highly valuable as a treasure of the most solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it bad contained no such details it would have been a work most remarkable for its general views and scope.""





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Roger bacon" Quotes from Famous Books



... kept him from attending to them. Now, however, Edward's sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, much encouraged a printer named Caxton, whose books she sent her brother, and other presses were set up in London. Another great change had come in. Long ago, in the time of Henry III., a monk name Roger Bacon had made gunpowder; but nobody used it much until, in the reign of Edward III., it was found out how cannon might be fired with it; and some say it was first used in the battle of Crecy. But it was not till the ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inoculation in the eighteenth century was a survival of the mediaeval view of disease. Chemistry (alchemy) was considered a diabolical art and in 1317 was condemned by the Pope. The long imprisonment of Roger Bacon (thirteenth century) who, while he professed zeal for orthodoxy, had an inconvenient instinct for scientific research, illustrates ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... the speculative thinker, the analytic or synthetic philosopher of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, these representing Imperial Britain, as the former represent national or feudal England. Erigena in the ninth century surveying all things as from a tall rock, Dunstan, Roger Bacon wasting in a prison "through the incurable stupidity of the world," as he briefly explains it, Michael Scott, Hooker, Bacon, Glanvil, Milton, and Locke, formed by England, these men have in turn ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... as Alexander Hales and Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus among the Minorites—all Englishmen be it remembered—and Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus among the Dominicans, had given to intellectual life that amazing lift into a higher region of thought, speculation, and inquiry which prepared the way for greater things ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... is the famous Epistle on the magnet, written by Peter Peregrinus, a Picard, in an army camp at the Siege of Lucera and dated August 8, 1269.[40] In spite of the precise dating it is certain that the work was done long before, for it is quoted unmistakably by Roger Bacon in at least three places, one of which must have been written ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price


More quotes...


Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org