Harriot's London -- Sea fever -- The science of sea and sky -- Practical navigation (and why the winds blow) -- America at last -- Preparing for Virginia -- Roanoke Island -- After Roanoke -- War, and a new calendar -- New chances -- Setback -- Royal refraction -- Spirals and turmoil -- Changing of the guard -- Algebra, rainbows, and an infamous plot -- Solving the rainbow -- Conversations with Kepler -- Atomic speculations -- Gravity -- Mathematics, Jamestown, Guiana -- The end of an era -- All things must pass -- Resurrecting Harriot.
Summary:
"Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) was a pioneer in both the figurative and literal sense. Navigational adviser and loyal friend to Sir Walter Ralegh, Harriot took part in the first expedition to colonize Virginia. Not only was he responsible for getting Ralegh's ships safely to harbor in the New World, once there he became the first European to acquire a working knowledge of an indigenous language (he also began a lifelong love of tobacco, which may have been his undoing). Harriot's abilities were seemingly unlimited and nearly awe-inspiring. He was the first to use a telescope to map the moon's craters, and, independently of Galileo, discovered and recorded sunspots. He preceded Newton (whose fame eclipsed his) in his discovery of the properties of the prism.Though his thinking depended on a more natural, intuitive approach than those who followed him, Harriot laid the foundations of what in Newton's time would become modern physics. Robyn Arianrhod's biography offers the human face of scientific discovery, a lived example of the way in which science actually progresses."-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.