快猫短视频

The First 快猫短视频: The visionary genius of Roger Bacon by Brian Clegg, Constable & Robinson, 拢16.99, ISBN 1841196185 Reviewed by Roy Herbert

BRIAN CLEGG鈥檚 book has been written to achieve more fame and respect for Roger Bacon, the medieval friar and philosopher who, he maintains, has a much more authentic claim to be the first scientist than, say Leonardo da Vinci. The 800th anniversary of Bacon鈥檚 birth occurs in 2020 and Clegg says it ought to be celebrated properly, especially as the anniversary of Bacon鈥檚 death was missed in 1994.

Although Clegg puts the date of Bacon鈥檚 birth as around 1220, most references give it as around 1214. There are plenty of such uncertainties in The First 快猫短视频 鈥� 鈥減robably鈥� and 鈥渋t seems reasonable to assume鈥� abound.

Nevertheless, there is a strong case for Bacon to be given long-merited due. It鈥檚 based on his arguments that experiment and observation are the right ways to understanding the natural world 鈥� the first steps to science, but profoundly shocking to the religious authorities and conventions of his time. His outspoken hostility to magic as fakery led paradoxically to his being tried as a magician and imprisoned for ten years.

Clegg writes about the medieval world and Bacon鈥檚 investigations into optics and mathematics with a contemporary liveliness that keeps the story moving. Even King John has a 鈥渢rack record鈥�. Whether it is enough to shift Bacon to the foremost place among scientific heroes is doubtful, but it ought to give him much more prominence in encyclopaedias.