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The Britannica Guide to the 100 Most Influential
Scientists 2008 9th Edition Encyclopaedia Britannica
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
ISBN(s): 9781593398460, 1593398468
Edition: 9
File Details: PDF, 1.23 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
Encyclopñdia Britannica, Inc., is a leader in reference and educa-
tion publishing whose products can be found in many media,
from the Internet to mobile phones to books. A pioneer in
electronic publishing since the early 1980s, Britannica launched
the first encyclopedia on the Internet in 1994. It also continues to
publish and revise its famed print set, first released in Edinburgh,
Scotland, in 1768. Encyclopñdia Britannica's contributors in-
clude many of the greatest writers and scholars in the world, and
more than 110 Nobel Prize winners have written for Britannica.
A professional editorial staff ensures that Britannica's content is
clear, current, and correct. This book is principally based on
content from the encyclopedia and its contributors.

Introducer

John Gribbin is the author of nearly 100 popular science books,

including the bestselling In Search of SchroÈdinger's Cat. He has
received awards for his writing both in the United States and in
Britain. The holder of a PhD in astrophysics from the University
of Cambridge, he still maintains links with research as a Visting
Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex, and is the leader
of a team there that measured the age of the Universe. While still a
student, he received the prestigious Annual Award of the Gravity
Research Foundation in the United States, the only student, and
the first Englishman working in England, ever to receive this
award.
 THE GUIDE TO

THE 100 MOST

INFLUENTIAL
SCIENTISTS
The most important scientists from
Ancient Greece to the present day

Introduction by John Gribbin

 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
www.britannica.com
First print edition published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2008
Text © 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Introduction © 2008 John Gribbin
The right of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. and John Gribbin
to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act, 1988.
Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, and the Thistle logo
are registered trademarks of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
This eBook edition published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-59339-846-0
No part of this work may be produced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
 CONTENTS

Introduction xi
Learning from the Lessons of History
by John Gribbin

Thales of Miletus 1
Pythagoras 2
Hippocrates 3
Plato 5
Aristotle 7
Euclid 12
Archimedes 16
Pliny the Elder 18
Ptolemy 22
Galen of Pergamum 26
Al-KhwaÅrizmõÅ 29
Avicenna 31
Roger Bacon 34
Leonardo da Vinci 37
Nicolaus Copernicus 43
VI CONTENTS

Paracelsus 47
Andreas Vesalius 51
Tycho Brahe 53
Girodano Bruno 56
Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban 60
Galileo Galilei 65
Johannes Kepler 70
William Harvey 75
Rene Descartes 78
Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke 82
John Ray 85
Sir Isaac Newton 88
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 95
Leonhard Euler 98
Carolus Linnaeus 100
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon 104
Jean Le Rond d'Alembert 107
Henry Cavendish 110
Joseph Priestley 115
James Watt 118
Luigi Galvani and Conte Alessandro Volta 121
Sir William Herschel and Caroline Herschel 124
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier 128
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace 132
Edward Jenner 135
Georges, Baron Cuvier 137
Alexander von Humboldt 140
Sophie Germain 145
Carl Friedrich Gauss 147
Sir Humphry Davy 151
JoÈns Jacob Berzelius 154
John James Audubon 157
Michael Faraday 159
 CONTENTS VII

Charles Babbage and Ada King, countess of Lovelace 165

Sir Charles Lyell, Baronet 169
Louis Agassiz 172
Charles Darwin 175
EÂvariste Galois 185
Sir Francis Galton 188
Gregor Mendel 191
Louis Pasteur 194
Alfred Russel Wallace 198
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin 201
James Clerk Maxwell 206
Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev 209
Robert Koch 212
Georg Cantor 216
Henri Poincare 219
Sigmund Freud 223
Nikola Tesla 230
Max Planck 233
William Bateson 236
Marie Curie and Pierre Curie 238
Sir Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson 241
Carl Gustav Jung 245
Albert Einstein 248
Alfred Lothar Wegener 259
Sir Alexander Fleming 261
Niels Bohr 262
Erwin SchroÈdinger 267
Srinivasa Ramanujan 270
Edwin Powell Hubble 271
Enrico Fermi 273
John von Neumann 277
George Gamow 281
J. Robert Oppenheimer 283
VIII CONTENTS

Kurt GoÈdel 286

Hans Bethe 287
Rachel Carson 291
Alan M. Turing 292
Norman Ernest Borlaug 296
Sir Fred Hoyle 297
Francis Harry Compton Crick and
James Dewey Watson 298
Richard P. Feynman 301
Rosalind Franklin 305
Jack Kilby 306
John Forbes Nash Jr 308
Edward O. Wilson 309
Jane Goodall 312
Sir Harold W. Kroto, Richard E. Smalley, and
Robert F. Curl Jr 313
Stephen Jay Gould 315
Stephen W. Hawking 317
J. Craig Venter and Francis Collins 318
Steven Pinker 321
Sir Tim Berners-Lee 323

Index 325
 INTRODUCTION
Learning from the Lessons of History
John Gribbin

Science isn't what it used to be. Most scientists today work in

large teams on projects which cost a lot of money and are
inevitably, to a greater or lesser extent, steered by committees.
Even theorists seldom work alone and they need computer
time, which doesn't come cheap for the kind of supercompu-
ters they use. One result of this is that projects have to have
clear goals with widespread appeal before they are ever even
started.
A century ago, the justification for building the 100-inch
telescope that Edwin Hubble later used to discover the expan-
sion of the universe was simply to find out more about the
universe. In the late twentieth century, the main justification
for building and launching the Hubble Space Telescope was
determined in advance: the ``Hubble Key Project'' was formed
to measure the expansion rate of the universe and thereby
determine its age. By that time, the astronomers would never
have got funding if they had simply asked for a big space
telescope to explore the universe and find out what it's like.
Similarly, the Large Hadron Collider (a particle accelerator) at
X LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, is intended

to ``find the Higgs boson''. Biologists were able to obtain
funding to ``map the human genome''.
Of course, serendipitous discoveries come along the way;
but there is little chance today for the kind of research carried
out by most of the scientists whose lives and work are
described in this book. So much has already been discovered.
Isaac Newton could sit and wonder about so simple a thing as
the fall of an apple from a tree, because nobody else had
wondered about it in quite the same way before. A modern
scientist intrigued by gravity has to learn all that Newton,
Einstein and others discovered first, before attempting to
extend the boundaries of this knowledge.
This is why the history of science, and especially a history
which brings the scientists themselves alive for us, is so
important. It shows us science as a more tangible human
endeavour, that we can relate to more easily than we can to
the search for the Higgs boson ± but it also shows us how far
we have come, since the speculations of those Greek philo-
sophers who are now regarded as the first scientists. The
unfolding story told in this particular history also gives the lie
to one of the most pervasive, but misleading, myths about
science ± the idea that it proceeds in a series of revolutionary
leaps.

A book like this makes it clear that science actually progresses

in a series of relatively small steps, each one building on the
work of earlier scientists. Isaac Newton famously wrote that if
he had seen farther than others it was by ``standing on the
shoulders of Giants''. There are several layers of meaning (not
least that Newton intended it as an insult to his physically
small but intellectually great contemporary Robert Hooke),
but even taking it at face value it would be more appropriate to
 LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY XI

say that progress in science is made by ``standing on the

shoulders of midgets''. The great breakthroughs came about
principally from the culmination of years, often generations, of
painstaking work. It is a long trek up a mountain path before a
new vista is suddenly revealed in all its glory. The last step may
be the most spectacular, but it would not have been possible
without all the steps that went before.
Newton himself provides the perfect example of this. If
anyone in the history of science might be thought of as a lone
genius who single-handedly revolutionised our view of the
world, it is surely Isaac Newton. And yet, we can trace a direct
line to Newton's ``discovery'' of the law of universal gravita-
tion in the 1680s from the work of William Gilbert, an
Elizabethan physician who published a great book on magnet-
ism in London in 1600. In his book, De Magnete, Gilbert set
out clearly for the first time in print the essence of the scientific
method of testing ideas by experiment, something that, for all
their achievements, the philosophers of Ancient Greece had
singularly failed to appreciate. Gilbert's book was read by,
among others, Galileo Galilei, who spread the word and
himself investigated, among other things, the nature of gravity,
orbits, and the inertia of moving objects. By the 1680s,
developing from the ideas of Galileo, Robert Hooke, Chris-
topher Wren, and Edmond Halley, members of the newly
established Royal Society, had got as far as speculating that
gravity obeys an inverse square law, although they could not
prove that this was the only possible explanation of the orbits
of the planets around the Sun. It was Newton who put all of
the pieces together, added his own insights, and came up with
his idea of a universal inverse square law of gravitation,
complete with a mathematical proof of its importance for
orbits. But where would he have been without the others? And
I haven't even mentioned the person usually cited, correctly, as
XII LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

a profound influence on Newton ± Johannes Kepler, who

discovered the laws of planetary motion!

The stories of people such as Gilbert, Galileo, and the others

mentioned here highlight another fascinating feature of histor-
ical biography ± the reminder that great discoveries were, and
are, made by real people who had their daily lives to lead and
experienced both the joys and tribulations of their times in
much the same way as many of their contemporaries. Even at a
professional level, there was often much more to them than the
work for which they are remembered. Christopher Wren, for
example, is best known today as an architect, but he was also a
pioneering astronomer; conversely, Hooke is remembered as
a scientist, but he was also an architect ± Wren's partner in the
reconstruction of London after the Great Fire of 1666
(the Monument to the fire is Hooke's work, as are several
of the ``Wren'' churches). We also know that the early
Fellows of the Royal Society used to meet socially with their
friends in the fashionable coffee shops that sprang up in
Restoration London, and, of course, they suffered the tribula-
tions of both the plague of 1665 and the fire of 1666.
Scientists are not white-coated robots who have no lives
outside the laboratory. The importance of spelling this out was
brought home to me some time ago, when I began writing
science fiction stories in collaboration with the novelist Doug-
las Orgill ± now, alas, no longer with us. At first, my role was
chiefly to ensure that the science was realistic, even if it was
fictional. Sometimes, Douglas would call me, to ask how a
character would react in the particular circumstances that the
plot required. He was asking because he assumed that a
scientist would react differently than a ``normal'' person
would. Almost always, I would reply, ``Douglas, how would
you react?'' He would tell me, and I would say, ``well, fine,
 LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY XIII

that's how the character would react.'' Soon, the penny

dropped. Douglas began to treat his scientist characters as
people with the same kind of loves, hates, and foibles as the
other characters, and that particular kind of call stopped
coming.

Where space permits, the backgrounds of the scientists and

their work described here provide fascinating insights into
``scientists as people'' and of the social conditions that existed
in the times they lived through. The lives and work of John
Ray in the seventeenth century and of Joseph Priestley in the
eighteenth century provide us with good examples of the
continuing importance of religion and religious conflicts in
Europe throughout most of the past six centuries, even if Ray
and Priestley did not suffer quite so severely at the hands of the
religious authorities as Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake
for heresy, or Galileo, forced to renounce his scientific work.
As well as the interplay between science, scientists, and
society, there was also the interplay between science and
technology, which makes it particularly pleasing that the
present volume does not take too narrow-minded a view of
what ``science'' means, but includes great engineers, inven-
tors, instrument-makers, and physicians. Throughout his-
tory, progress in science has led to progress in
technology, and progress in technology has led to progress
in science in a self-sustaining feedback. Better scientific
instruments, such as telescopes and microscopes, led to
the development of technologies which became the basis
of better scientific instruments, such as electron microscopes
and telescopes with digital imaging cameras.
It isn't as widely appreciated as it should be that one of the
most important steps towards the quantum physics ``revolu-
tion'' in the twentieth century was the development in the
XIV LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

nineteenth century of an efficient air pump, which made it

possible to study the behaviour of things like beams of elec-
trons in evacuated glass tubes. Without this seemingly mun-
dane piece of equipment, J.J. Thomson would never have
developed his understanding of the nature of the electron.
One reason why the Ancient Greeks didn't understand elec-
trons is that they didn't have good vacuum pumps, not that
they weren't as clever as Thomson and his contemporaries.
Perhaps the neatest example of this feedback involves the
growth of the science of thermodynamics and the practical
implications leading to improvements in the steam engine
during the nineteenth century. Starting with the story of James
Watt, who pedants might claim was ``merely'' an instrument
maker, the story can be traced through the work of people
such as James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann to
become one of the most important features of our under-
standing of the physical world, encapsulated in the famous
Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says, in a nutshell,
``everything wears out''. This is a more profound insight than
it might seem at first, since it implies that the universe as we
know it must have had a beginning a finite time ago, or it
would have worn out already. Thus such a simple technolo-
gical solution actually offers a direct link between James
Watt's steam-engine and the Big Bang theory!
Another demonstration of the way science progresses in-
crementally rather than in a series of sudden leaps comes from
the way in which new ideas have often occurred to different
people at the same time: known as ``multiple discoveries''. The
reason is not just that they are particularly clever (``but my
goodness,'' as Lorelei Lee, the character played by Marilyn
Monroe in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes commented in a
different context, ``doesn't it help?'') but that previous dis-
coveries have made the time ripe for the new insight.
 LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY XV

The classic example of this is, of course, the theory of

natural selection, which was hit upon independently by
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who both feature
here, and announced their discovery in 1858. Incidentally, it's
worth emphasising that the theory is indeed natural selection,
not evolution. Evolution is a fact, observed in nature, and
generations before Darwin and Wallace had been aware of the
fact of evolution and puzzled over how to explain it ± one of
those earlier thinkers was Charles Darwin's own grandfather,
Erasmus Darwin. Natural selection is the theory put forward
to explain the fact of evolution. It is therefore not really a
coincidence that two English naturalists of the nineteenth
century should each be stimulated by their observations of
the profusion of life in the tropics and the writings of Thomas
Malthus to discover the process of natural selection, at the
same time.
A slightly less familiar example is the discovery (or inven-
tion) of the periodic table of the elements, which is usually
attributed to Dmitry Mendeleyev, who features here, but was
actually a complicated story involving at least three of his
contemporaries before something like the modern version of
the periodic table emerged. Both the English industrial chemist
John Newlands and the French mineralogist Alexandre BeÂ-
guyer de Chancourtois realised independently that if the ele-
ments are arranged in order of their atomic weight, there is a
repeating pattern of chemical properties.
Their ideas were published in the first half of the 1860s,
when BeÂguyer was simply ignored while, in contrast, New-
lands was savagely criticised for making such a ridiculous
suggestion. In 1864, the German chemist and physician Lothar
Meyer, unaware of any of this, published a hint at his own
version in a textbook, and then developed a full account of the
periodic table for a second edition, which did not appear in
XVI LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

print until 1870. By which time Mendeleyev had presented his

version of the periodic table to the world of chemistry, in
complete ignorance of all the work along similar lines going on
in England, France, and Germany.
Meyer always acknowledged Mendeleyev's priority, be-
cause Mendeleyev had been bold enough to publish his idea
first, but Meyer and Mendeleyev shared the Davy medal of the
Royal Society in 1882. Five years later, Newlands also received
the Davy medal, leaving BeÂguyer as the odd man out.

Inevitably, in a project of this kind the choice of the hundred

``most influential'' scientists of all time must to some extent be
subjective, and we can all make our own lists. Mine would
certainly have included several people who do not make it
here. Ibn al-Haytham, often referred to as Alhazen or Alhazan,
was one of the great Arab experimental scientists, a pioneer in
particular of optical studies, during the period around the year
ad 1000 (he was born in 965 and died in 1040), when
European science was standing still (if anything, regressing)
in the centuries before the Renaissance. If it had not been for
scientists like him and al-KhwaÅrizmõÅ, there would have been
precious little knowledge with which to kick-start the Renais-
sance.
Charles Darwin's captain, Robert Fitzroy, did much more
than act as the ``driver'' on the famous voyage of the HMS
Beagle, and among other things invented weather forecasting,
as the first Director of the UK Meteorological Office. Now,
that really was influential! And coming right up to date, James
Lovelock has surely been more influential than any living
scientist, with his concept of the Earth as a living planet, Gaia.

The obvious question once you start listing the names of who
to put in to a book like this is, who do you leave out to make
 LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY XVII

room for them? And this raises the question of how scientists
from different eras can be compared. It is impossible to say
whether John Ray was more influential than Harry Kroto, or
whether Ernest Rutherford was more influential than Thales of
Miletus. Much of the appeal of the exercise surely lies in the
broad sweep of history that is covered, with no attempt to say
whether developments in one century are more or less sig-
nificant in the long term than contributions in another period.
It is all too easy to look back from our present perspective
and succumb to the temptation to see the twentieth century as
a time of culmination in many areas of science. In the physical
world, with the great theories of relativity and quantum
physics, science has described the world on both the largest
and the smallest scales, as well as everything in between; and in
the living world with the understanding of the genetic code and
the mechanism of evolution we seem to have the secret of life
itself. But with the longer perspective, it is easy to see that we
have been here before, even as recently as the end of the
nineteenth century, when many scientists believed that all that
remained was to dot a few i's and cross a few t's.
In a thousand years from now, perhaps our ideas about the
nature of life and the universe will seem as strange as Johannes
Kepler's ``explanation'' of the orbits of the planets in terms of
nested polyhedra seems to us. And yet, although we are
amused by this particular idea, we still acknowledge Kepler
as one of the most influential scientists of all time. We can be
sure that in a thousand years, whatever shape science may
have taken, if twentieth-century science is remembered at all
Albert Einstein, Francis Crick, and Richard Feynman will take
their place in any equivalent survey.

The final, and perhaps most important, message from a survey

of this kind is that science does indeed continue to progress,
XVIII LEARNING FROM THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

and that it is not always possible to predict the direction it will

take. Perhaps the Large Hadron Collider will, indeed, find the
Higgs boson, and the so-called Standard Model of particle
physics will triumph once again. But perhaps it will not, and
the Standard Model will have to be rebuilt. Contrary to what
many people assume, it is the second possibility that excites the
scientists. A career dotting i's and crossing t's is not one that
appeals to many; what they long for is a new discovery that
reveals new vistas at the top of the latest mountain path, with
the prospect of a lifetime spent exploring the new opportu-
nities that it opens up. It is that kind of opportunity, after all,
that will give some lucky, and talented, people the opportunity
to feature in a future edition of a book like this.
 THALES OF MILETUS (c. 624±c. 546 BC)

One of the legendary Seven Wise Men,

or Sophoi, of antiquity, remembered primarily
for his cosmology.

No writings by Thales survive, and no contemporary sources

exist, so his achievements are difficult to assess. The inclusion
of his name in the canon of the legendary Seven Wise Men led
to his idealization, and numerous acts and sayings, many of
them no doubt spurious, were attributed to him. ``Know
thyself'' and ``Nothing in excess'' are two examples.
Thales has been credited with the discovery of five geometric
theorems: (1) that a circle is bisected by its diameter, (2) that in
a triangle the angles opposite two sides of equal length are
equal, (3) that opposite angles formed by intersecting straight
lines are equal, (4) that the angle inscribed inside a semicircle is
a right angle, and (5) that a triangle is determined if its base
and the two angles at the base are given. His mathematical
achievements are hard to determine, however, because of the
practice at that time of crediting particular discoveries to men
with a general reputation for wisdom.
The claim that Thales was the founder of European philo-
sophy rests primarily on Aristotle (384±322 bc), who wrote
that Thales was the first to suggest a single material substratum
for the universe, namely water, or moisture. A likely considera-
tion in this choice was the apparent motion that water exhibits,
as seen in its ability to become vapour ± for what changes or
moves itself was thought by the Greeks to be close to life itself,
and to Thales the entire universe was a living organism,
Other documents randomly have
different content
 II

“THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM”

Son. Good day,[161] sire! I have come to see you as it behooves a

humble and obedient son to approach a loving and renowned father;
and I pray you to listen with patience to the questions that I have in
mind to ask and kindly to vouchsafe an answer to each one.
Father. Inasmuch as you are my only son, I am pleased to have
you come often to see me, for there are many subjects which we
ought to discuss. I shall be glad to hear what you wish to inquire
about and to answer such questions as are discreetly asked.
Son. I have heard the common report (which I believe is true) as
to your wisdom, that in all the land it would be difficult to find a man
who has greater insight into every form of knowledge than you
have; for all those who have difficult matters to settle are eager to
get your decision. I have also been told that the same was true
when you were at the royal court, and that the entire government,
lawmaking, treaty making, and every other sort of business, seemed
to be guided by your opinion. Now as I am the lawful heir to your
worldly possessions, I should also like to share somewhat in the
heritage of your wisdom. Wherefore I wish to have you point out to
me the beginnings and the alphabet of wisdom, as far as I am able
to learn them from you, so that I may later be able to read all your
learned writings, and thus follow in your footsteps. For I am sure
that after your decease many will rely on your having trained me
after your own ways.
 Father. It pleases me to hear you speak in this wise, and I shall be
glad to answer; for it is a great comfort to me that I shall leave
much wealth for my own true son to enjoy after my days; but I
should scarcely regard him as a son, though I had begotten him, if
he were a fool. Now if you seek understanding, I will show you the
basis and the beginning of all wisdom, as a great and wise man once
expressed it: to fear Almighty God, this is the beginning of wisdom.
[162]
But He is not to be feared as an enemy, but rather with the fear
of love, as the Son of God taught the man who asked him what the
substance of the law was. For the Son of God referred him to the
Scripture that reads as follows: Thou shalt love God with all thy
heart and with all thy strength and with all thy might.[163] Now one
should love God above everything else and fear Him at all times
when evil desires arise; he should banish evil longings for God’s
sake, though he were bold enough to cherish them for men’s sake.
Now if you wish to know what are the beginnings and the first steps
in the pursuit of wisdom, this is the true beginning, and there is
none other. And whoever learns this and observes it shall not be
wanting in true knowledge or in any form of goodness.
Son. This is indeed loving counsel, such as one might expect from
you; besides, it is good and easily learned by every one whom
fortune follows. Still, if one is to be reputed a wise man, it will surely
be necessary to take up many things that pertain to the various
crafts.
Father. This is the beginning and the alphabet of every good thing.
But through the alphabet one learns to read books, and in the same
way it is always better the more crafts are added to this art. For
through the crafts a man gains wisdom whatever the calling that he
intends to follow, whether that of kingsman,[164] yeoman, or
merchant.
 III

THE ACTIVITIES AND HABITS OF A MERCHANT

Son. I am now in my most vigorous years and have a desire to

travel abroad; for I would not venture to seek employment at court
before I had observed the customs of other men. Such is my
intention at present, unless you should give me other advice.
Father. Although I have been a kingsman rather than a merchant,
I have no fault to find with that calling, for often the best of men are
chosen for it. But much depends on whether the man is more like
those who are true merchants, or those who take the merchant’s
name but are mere frauds and foisterers, buying and selling
wrongfully.
Son. It would be more seemly for me to be like the rightful ones;
for it would be worse than one might think likely, if your son were to
imitate those who are not as they ought. But whatever my fate is to
be, I desire to have you inform me as to the practices of such men
as seem to be capable in that business.
Father. The man who is to be a trader will have to brave many
perils, sometimes at sea and sometimes in heathen lands,[165] but
nearly always among alien peoples; and it must be his constant
purpose to act discreetly wherever he happens to be. On the sea he
must be alert and fearless.
When you are in a market town, or wherever you are, be polite
and agreeable; then you will secure the friendship of all good men.
Make it a habit to rise early in the morning, and go first and
immediately to church wherever it seems most convenient to hear
the canonical hours, and hear all the hours and mass from matins
on. Join in the worship, repeating such psalms and prayers as you
have learned. When the services are over, go out to look after your
business affairs. If you are unacquainted with the traffic of the town,
observe carefully how those who are reputed the best and most
prominent merchants conduct their business. You must also be
careful to examine the wares that you buy before the purchase is
finally made to make sure that they are sound and flawless. And
whenever you make a purchase, call in a few trusty men to serve as
witnesses as to how the bargain was made.
You should keep occupied with your business till breakfast or, if
necessity demands it, till midday; after that you should eat your
meal. Keep your table well provided and set with a white cloth, clean
victuals, and good drinks. Serve enjoyable meals, if you can afford it.
After the meal you may either take a nap or stroll about a little while
for pastime and to see what other good merchants are employed
with, or whether any new wares have come to the borough which
you ought to buy. On returning to your lodgings examine your
wares, lest they suffer damage after coming into your hands. If they
are found to be injured and you are about to dispose of them, do
not conceal the flaws from the purchaser: show him what the
defects are and make such a bargain as you can; then you cannot
be called a deceiver. Also put a good price on your wares, though
not too high, and yet very near what you see can be obtained; then
you cannot be called a foister.
Finally, remember this, that whenever you have an hour to spare
you should give thought to your studies, especially to the law books;
for it is clear that those who gain knowledge from books have
keener wits than others, since those who are the most learned have
the best proofs for their knowledge. Make a study of all the laws, but
while you remain a merchant there is no law that you will need to
know more thoroughly than the Bjarkey code.[166] If you are
acquainted with the law, you will not be annoyed by quibbles when
you have suits to bring against men of your own class, but will be
able to plead according to law in every case.
But although I have most to say about laws, I regard no man
perfect in knowledge unless he has thoroughly learned and mastered
the customs of the place where he is sojourning. And if you wish to
become perfect in knowledge, you must learn all the languages, first
of all Latin and French, for these idioms are most widely used; and
yet, do not neglect your native tongue or speech.
 IV

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

Son. May God reward you, sire, for the love of kinship that you
show in pointing out so many things that I may find needful,—if I
have the good fortune to learn them and to remember them after
they are learned. And if you think there are any other important
matters that ought to be taken up in this discussion, I shall be glad
to listen attentively.
Father. There are, indeed, certain matters which should not be
omitted from this discourse, but they can be stated in a few words,
if that seems best. Train yourself to be as active as possible, though
not so as to injure your health. Strive never to be downcast, for a
downcast mind is always morbid; try rather to be friendly and genial
at all times, of an even temper and never moody. Be upright and
teach the right to every man who wishes to learn from you; and
always associate with the best men. Guard your tongue carefully;
this is good counsel, for your tongue may honor you, but it may also
condemn you. Though you be angry speak few words and never in
passion; for unless one is careful, he may utter words in wrath that
he would later give gold to have unspoken. On the whole, I know of
no revenge, though many employ it, that profits a man less than to
bandy heated words with another, even though he has a quarrel to
settle with him. You shall know of a truth that no virtue is higher or
stronger than the power to keep one’s tongue from foul or profane
speech, tattling, or slanderous talk in any form. If children be given
to you, let them not grow up without learning a trade; for we may
expect a man to keep closer to knowledge and business when he
comes of age, if he is trained in youth while under control.
And further, there are certain things which you must beware of
and shun like the devil himself: these are drinking, chess, harlots,
quarreling, and throwing dice for stakes. For upon such foundations
the greatest calamities are built; and unless they strive to avoid
these things, few only are able to live long without blame or sin.
Observe carefully how the sky is lighted, the course of the
heavenly bodies, the grouping of the hours, and the points of the
horizon. Learn also how to mark the movements of the ocean and to
discern how its turmoil ebbs and swells; for that is knowledge which
all must possess who wish to trade abroad. Learn arithmetic
thoroughly, for merchants have great need of that.
If you come to a place where the king or some other chief who is
in authority has his officials, seek to win their friendship; and if they
demand any necessary fees on the ruler’s behalf, be prompt to
render all such payments, lest by holding too tightly to little things
you lose the greater. Also beware lest the king’s belongings find their
way into your purse; for you cannot know but that he may be
covetous who has those things in charge, and it is easier to be
cautious beforehand than to crave pardon afterwards. If you can
dispose of your wares at suitable prices, do not hold them long; for
it is the wont of merchants to buy constantly and to sell rapidly.
If you are preparing to carry on trade beyond the seas and you
sail your own ship, have it thoroughly coated with tar in the autumn
and, if possible, keep it tarred all winter. But if the ship is placed on
timbers too late to be coated in the fall, tar it when spring opens and
let it dry thoroughly afterwards. Always buy shares in good vessels
or in none at all. Keep your ship attractive, for then capable men will
join you and it will be well manned. Be sure to have your ship ready
when summer begins and do your traveling while the season is best.
Keep reliable tackle on shipboard at all times, and never remain out
at sea in late autumn, if you can avoid it. If you attend carefully to
all these things, with God’s mercy you may hope for success. This,
too, you must keep constantly in mind, if you wish to be counted a
wise man, that you ought never to let a day pass without learning
something that will profit you. Be not like those who think it beneath
their dignity to hear or learn from others such things even as might
avail them much if they knew them. For a man must regard it as
great an honor to learn as to teach, if he wishes to be considered
thoroughly informed.
There remain a few minor matters that ought to be mentioned.
Whenever you travel at sea, keep on board two or three hundred ells
of wadmal of a sort suitable for mending sails, if that should be
necessary, a large number of needles, and a supply of thread and
cord. It may seem trivial to mention these things, but it is often
necessary to have them on hand. You will always need to carry a
supply of nails, both spikes and rivets, of such sizes as your ship
demands; also good boat hooks and broadaxes, gouges and augers,
and all such other tools as ship carpenters make use of. All these
things that I have now named you must remember to carry with you
on shipboard, whenever you sail on a trading voyage and the ship is
your own. When you come to a market town where you expect to
tarry, seek lodgings from the innkeeper who is reputed the most
discreet and the most popular among both kingsmen and
boroughmen. Always buy good clothes and eat good fare if your
means permit; and never keep unruly or quarrelsome men as
attendants or messmates. Keep your temper calm though not to the
point of suffering abuse or bringing upon yourself the reproach of
cowardice. Though necessity may force you into strife, be not in a
hurry to take revenge; first make sure that your effort will succeed
and strike where it ought. Never display a heated temper when you
see that you are likely to fail, but be sure to maintain your honor at
some later time, unless your opponent should offer a satisfactory
atonement.
 If your wealth takes on rapid growth, divide it and invest it in a
partnership trade in fields where you do not yourself travel; but be
cautious in selecting partners. Always let Almighty God, the holy
Virgin Mary, and the saint whom you have most frequently called
upon to intercede for you be counted among your partners. Watch
with care over the property which the saints are to share with you
and always bring it faithfully to the place to which it was originally
promised.
If you have much capital invested in trade, divide it into three
parts: put one-third into partnerships with men who are permanently
located in market boroughs, are trustworthy, and are experienced in
business. Place the other two parts in various business ventures; for
if your capital is invested in different places, it is not likely that you
will suffer losses in all your wealth at one time: more likely it will be
secure in some localities, though frequent losses be suffered. But if
you find that the profits of trade bring a decided increase to your
funds, draw out the two-thirds and invest them in good farm land,
for such property is generally thought the most secure, whether the
enjoyment of it falls to one’s self or to one’s kinsmen. With the
remaining third you may do as seems best,—continue to keep it in
business or place it all in land. However, though you decide to keep
your funds invested in trade, discontinue your own journeys at sea
or as a trader in foreign fields, as soon as your means have attained
sufficient growth and you have studied foreign customs as much as
you like. Keep all that you see in careful memory, the evil with the
good; remember evil practices as a warning, and the good customs
as useful to yourself and to others who may wish to learn from you.
 V

THE SUN AND THE WINDS

Son. It is evident that whoever wishes to become informed on

such matters as those which you have now discussed must first try
to determine what is most worth learning and afterwards to keep in
mind all that he has heard. But in your discussion just recently you
mentioned several things the nature of which I do not understand,
though I have reflected upon your statements, namely, the lights of
the sky and the movements of the ocean. Moreover, you urged me
to learn these things and stated that there is knowledge in learning
them. But I cannot comprehend them unless I shall hear them
explained; and I know of no other wise master with so kind a will to
teach me these matters as yourself. Therefore, with your permission,
I will ask you to continue this discussion, so that I may become
somewhat better informed on these subjects: how the lights of the
sky and the course of the heavenly bodies wax and wane; how the
time of the day is told and the hours are grouped; but especially
how the ocean moves and what causes its restlessness. For
sometimes the ocean appears so blithe and cheerful that one would
like to sport with it through an entire season; but soon it displays
such fierce wrath and ill-nature that the life and property of those
who have anything to do with it are endangered. Now I have
thought that, although the sun completes its course according to an
established law, that fact cannot produce the unquiet of the sea. If
you are disposed to explain these things further, I shall listen gladly
and attentively.
 Father. I can indeed give such an explanation, just as I have heard
it from the lips of well-informed men, and as seems most reasonable
according to the insight that God has given me. The sun has
received divers offices: for it brings light and warmth to all the earth,
and the various parts of the world rejoice in its approaching; but its
course is planned in such a way that it sometimes withdraws from
those regions that it approaches at other times. When it first comes
to visit the east with warmth and bright beams, the day begins to lift
up silvery brows and a pleasant face to the east wind. Soon the east
wind is crowned with a golden glory and robed in all his raiments of
joy. He eases griefs and regretful sighs and turns a bright
countenance toward his neighbors on either side, bidding them
rejoice with him in his delight and cast away their winterlike sorrows.
He also sends blazing rays into the face of the west wind to inform
him of his joy and happiness. He advises the west wind, too, that in
the evening he shall be clad in garments similar to those which the
east wind wore in the morning. Later in the day and at the proper
hour the southeast wind displays the glory of his newly-gotten robes
and sends warming rays with friendly messages into the face of the
northwest wind. But at midday the south wind reveals how he has
been endowed with riches of heat, sends warm gifts of friendship
across to the north wind, warms his cool face, and invites all the
neighboring winds to share in the abundance of his wealth. As the
day declines the southwest wind with glad face receives the gentle
sheen and genial beams. Having put away wrath, he reveals his
desire for peace and concord; he commands the mighty billows and
steep wave-crests to subside with waning power and calls forth
quickening dews in a wish to be fully reconciled with all his
neighbors. Gently he blows a refreshing breath into the face of the
northeast wind, warms his wind-chilled lips, and thaws his frosty
brow and frozen cheeks. But when evening begins, the west wind,
clad in splendor and sunset beauty as if robed for a festal eve, lifts a
gleaming brow above a blithe countenance, and sends a message on
darting beams across to the east wind telling him to prepare for the
festive morrow to come.
At sunset the northwest wind begins to raise his fair brows and
with lifted eyelids betokens to all his neighbors that the dazzling
radiance is now in his keeping. Thereupon he sends forth a shadow
over the face of the earth proclaiming to all that now come the
hours of rest after the toil of day. But at midnight the north wind
goes forth to meet the coursing sun and leads him through rocky
deserts toward the sparse-built shores. He calls forth heavy
shadows, covers his face with a broad-brimmed helmet, and informs
all that he is arrayed for the night watch to keep guard over his
neighbors that they may have comfort and untroubled rest after the
heat of day. With cool lips he gently blows upon the face of the
south wind, that he may be better able to resist the violent heat of
the coming day. He also scatters the dark clouds and clears up the
face of heaven in order that the sun, when light appears, may be
easily able to send forth his warm and radiant beams in all
directions. But on the coming of morn the northeast wind begins to
open his closed eyelids and blinks to both sides as if to determine
whether it is time to rise. Then he opens quickly his clear eyes as if
sated with sleep after ended rest. Soon he leads forth the gleaming
day into all the homesteads like a fair youth and fitting herald, to
give sure knowledge that the radiant sphere and shining sun follows
close behind and to command all to be arrayed for his coming. Soon
the sun rises and shoots forth his beams in all directions to watch
over the covenant made by the winds; and after that he goes on
through his ordained course as we have already told.
When peace has been established among these chiefs that we
have just named, it is safe to travel wherever you may wish through
the realms of any one of them. Then the sea begins to bar out all
violent storms and make smooth highways where earlier the route
was impassable because of broad billows and mighty waves; and the
shores offer harbors in many places which formerly gave no shelter.
Now, while this covenant holds, there will be fair sailing for you or
any others who wish to travel to foreign shores or steer their ships
over the perils of the ocean. It is, therefore, the duty of every man,
indeed it is a necessary one, to learn thoroughly when one may look
for dangerous seasons and bad routes, or when times come when
one may risk everything. For even unwitting beasts observe the
seasons, though by instinct, since they have no intellect. Even the
fishes, though lacking human insight, know how to find security in
the deep seas, while the winter storms are most violent; but when
winter wanes, they move nearer the shores and find enjoyment as
after a sorrow suffered and past. Later in the spring after the roe
has come, they lay the spawn and bring forth a vast multitude of
young fishes and in this way increase their race, each after its kind
and class. It does, indeed, show great forethought for unintelligent
creatures to provide so carefully against the coming winter storms,
and to bring forth their offspring at the opening of spring, so that
they may enjoy the calm weather of summer and search for food in
peace and quiet along the wide shores; for thus they gather strength
enough in summer against the ensuing winter to sustain themselves
among other fishes in the chilly deep.
The covenant brings joy to the sky as well as to the sea; for as
spring advances the birds soaring high into the air rejoice with
beautiful songs in the newly made treaty of these lords as in a
coming festival. Their joy is as great as if they have escaped great
and terrible dangers which might arise from the strife of these
chieftains. Soon they build nests upon the earth and lead birdlings
forth from them, each after its kind. Thus they increase their species
and care for their young in the summer that these may be able to
find their own sustenance in the winter following. Even the earth
rejoices in this peace-making, for as soon as the sun begins to pour
out its warming rays over the face of the earth, the ice begins to
thaw around the frozen grass roots; soon fragrant and fair-hued
herbs sprout forth, and the earth shows that she finds gladness and
festive joy in the fresh beauty of her emerald robes. She gladly
offers to all her offspring the sustenance which she had to refuse
them earlier because of the dearth in winter. The trees that stood
with dripping branches and frozen roots put forth green leaves, thus
showing their joy that the sorrow and distress of winter are past.
Unclean and repulsive beasts display insight and understanding in
their ability to determine the proper time to increase their kind and
to come out of their dens. They also observe the season when it is
necessary to flee the cold and stormy distress of winter and seek
shelter under rocks, in large crags, or in the deep scar of the
landslide till the time to come forth is at hand. Wild beasts that seek
their food in woods or on the mountains know well how to discern
the seasons; for they bear the begotten offspring while winter is
most severe, so that they may bring forth their young when the
grass is fresh and the summer is warm. There is a little creeping
thing called the ant, which can teach thoughtful men much practical
wisdom, whether they be merchants or husbandmen, kings or lesser
men. It teaches kings how to build castles and fortresses; in the
same way it teaches the merchants and the husbandmen with what
industry and at what seasons they ought to pursue their callings; for
he who has proper insight and observes carefully the activities of the
ant will note many things and derive much profit from them. All
other creatures, too, whether clean or unclean, rejoice in this
season, and with vigilant eyes seek their food in the warm summer
time so as to be able to endure more confidently the perils of a
destitute winter season. Now it is this covenant between these eight
winds that calls forth all the delights of earth and sky and the calm
stirring of the sea according to the command and mysterious skill of
Him Who ordained in the beginning that thus should all nature
remain until He should change the order of things. Now if you feel
that some of these matters have not yet been fully cleared up, you
may continue your inquiries and ask what questions you like.
 VI

THE TIDES AND THE CHANGES IN THE COURSE OF THE SUN

Son. It was a wise thought, it seems to me, to ask those questions

to which I have just received such fair replies; and I am encouraged
to inquire into certain other matters, namely the waxing of the sun,
the moon, and the streams or tides of the ocean,—how much and
how rapidly these things wax and wane. Now these things that I
have brought up for discussion are subjects which especially touch
the welfare of seafaring men, and it looks to me as if they would
profit much from a knowledge of these matters, since it gives insight
into the right conduct of their profession. And since I intend to labor
diligently in the trader’s calling, I should like very much, if it can be
done, to have you explain further some of those things that I have
just mentioned.
Father. Those things that you have now asked about do not all
wax or wane with equal rapidity; for the tide, when it rises,
completes its course in seven days plus half an hour of the eighth
day; and every seventh day there is flood tide in place of ebb. For
the tide rises one seventh part daily from the time when the rise
begins; and after it turns and begins to fall, it ebbs in the same way
during the next seven days but is retarded as much as half an hour
of the eighth day,[167] which must be added to the seven days. As to
how long an hour should be I can give you definite information; for
there should be twenty-four hours in two days, that is, a night and a
day, while the sun courses through the eight chief points of the sky:
and according to right reckoning the sun will pass through each
division in three hours of the day. On the other hand, the moon,
while it waxes, completes its course in fifteen days less six hours;[168]
and in a like period it wanes until the course is complete and
another comes. And it is always true that at this time the flood tide
is highest and the ebb strongest. But when the moon has waxed to
half, the flood tide is lowest and the ebb, too, is quite low. At full
moon the flood tide is again very high and the ebb is strong. But
when it has waned to half, both ebb and flood are quite low.
Merchants are, however, scarcely able to note these changes, as the
course is too swift; for the moon takes such long strides both in
waxing and waning that men, on that account, find it difficult to
determine the divisions of its course. The sun, on the other hand,
completes its course more slowly both in ascending and declining, so
that one may easily mark all the stages of its course. The sun moves
upward one hundred and eighty-two and one-half days and three
hours and for a like period it recedes again; it has then completed its
entire course, both ascent and decline, in three hundred days, by
the twelve-count[169] {360}, plus five days and six hours. Every
fourth year this becomes three hundred by the twelve-count and six
days more {366}; this is called leap year, for it has one day more
than the preceding twelvemonth, the additional hours being
gathered into twenty-four, a night and a day. In Latin all hundreds
are counted by tens, and there are, therefore, properly computed
three hundred by the ten-count plus sixty-six days whenever leap
year occurs, while the intervening years have only five days and six
hours with as many additional days by the other reckoning as I have
just stated.
But to your question concerning the growth of the sun’s path, how
one can most clearly discern it, I can scarcely give an answer so
precise as not to be wrong in part; for the sun’s path does not wax
at the same rate in all parts of the earth. I can, of course, answer
according to what I have found in the writings of men who have
treated the subject thoroughly, and it is generally believed that their
words come very near the truth. I have already told you how many
hours there are in a night and day and gave the number as twenty-
four.[170] I have indicated the length of each hour in stating that
three hours pass while the sun moves across one division of the sky.
Now there are some other little hours called ostensa,[171] sixty of
which make one of those that I mentioned earlier. It seems to me
quite likely that, as far north as we are, the sun’s path waxes five of
these little hours in a day and as much less than six as a twelfth part
of a little hour. And as to the growth of the sun’s path it seems most
reasonable to me that it waxes three-fourths of these hours toward
the east and the west and the remaining fourth in height toward the
zenith. South of us, however, this reckoning will fail; for north of us
the increase is greater and to the south less than we have just
stated; and the farther south, the greater is the difference, and the
sun more nearly overhead.
 VII

THE SUBJECT OF THE SUN’S COURSE CONTINUED

Son. With your permission I wish to inquire somewhat more fully

into this subject, for I do not quite understand it. You have said that
the sun’s ascent is more rapid to the north of us, where summer is
almost wanting, while the strength of winter is so overpowering that
summer seems like a mere shadow, and where in many places both
snow and ice lie all through summer just as in winter, as is true of
Iceland and particularly of Greenland. But I have heard that in the
southlands there are no severe winters, the sun being as hot in
winter as it is with us in summer; and that in winter, when the sun
has less power, both grain and other crops grow, while in summer
the earth cannot endure the fervent heat of the sun and
consequently yields neither grass nor grain; so that in regions like
Apulia and even more so in the land of Jerusalem the heat of
summer causes as great distress as the cold of winter with us. Now
when you tell me that the sun’s path waxes faster here in the north
than yonder in the south, I cannot see the reason why; for there the
sun’s heat is as great in winter as it is with us in summer; and it is
so much greater in summer that all vegetation on the earth is
scorched by it. Therefore it seems to me more likely that the sun’s
path waxes most rapidly where the heat is most intense. Now if you
can and will clear this up for me so that I can grasp it, I shall listen
gladly and attentively.
 Father. I shall begin my talk on the subject that I am now to take
up with a little illustration, which may help you to a clearer insight,
since you find it so difficult to believe the facts as stated. If you take
a lighted candle and set it in a room, you may expect it to light up
the entire interior, unless something should hinder, though the room
be quite large. But if you take an apple and hang it close to the
flame, so near that it is heated, the apple will darken nearly half the
room or even more. However, if you hang the apple near the wall, it
will not get hot; the candle will light up the whole house; and the
shadow on the wall where the apple hangs will be scarcely half as
large as the apple itself. From this you may infer that the earth-circle
is round like a ball and not equally near the sun at every point. But
where the curved surface lies nearest the sun’s path, there will the
greatest heat be; and some of the lands that lie continuously under
the unbroken rays cannot be inhabited. On the other hand, those
lands which the sun approaches with slanting rays may readily be
occupied; and yet, some of these are hotter than others according
as they lie nearer the sun’s path. But when the curved and steep
slope of the sphere-shaped wheel moves up before the light and the
beams of the sun, it will cast the deepest shadow where its curved
surface lies nearest the sun; and yet, the lands nearest the sun are
always hottest.[172] Now I agree with you that Apulia and Jerusalem
are hotter than our own country; but you must know that there are
places where the heat is greater than in either of those just
mentioned, for some countries are uninhabitable on account of the
heat. And I have heard it stated as a fact, that even when the sun
mounts highest, the night in those regions is very dark and quite
long. From this you must conclude that where the strength and
power of the sun are greater, since it is nearer, it must ascend and
decline more slowly; for the night is long in summer when the sun
mounts highest, and the day is long in winter when it sinks lowest.
Now I shall explain this so clearly that you will understand it fully.
You know that here with us in winter the day and the course of
the sun are brief; for so short is the sun’s path that it passes through
but a single region of the sky, and then only where the sun has
considerable strength. But in many places the sun is not to be seen
during a large part of winter, for example in Halogaland,[173] as we
have not only heard tell but have often and constantly learned and
observed with our own eyes. For we know definitely that from about
November 10 to January 10 there never comes a day so bright up
north in Vaag or at Andenes[174] in Halogaland but that the stars in
the sky are visible at midday as at midnight. And although the days
have so much light that the stars cannot be seen, nevertheless, in
most of the places that we have mentioned the sun remains invisible
till January 23. But after that date the days lengthen and the sun
mounts so rapidly, that beginning with April 6 daylight does not
disappear before September 17, all the intervening time being one
continuous day, for daylight never fails in all that while. From this
you may safely conclude that, though the sun is hotter in the
southern lands that we spoke of earlier, its course waxes and mounts
more slowly where the night, even at mid-summer, is deep and long
and dark, and where there is never a time in the whole twelvemonth
when day does not fail. But in Halogaland, as I have just said, there
is no day in winter and stars are visible at midday when the day
should be brightest; later, however, when the days begin to
lengthen, they grow so rapidly that early in spring daylight begins to
tarry all the night and continues till much of the autumn is past.
There remains one more proof which will seem very clear to you.
You know that in those localities in Halogaland that we have just
mentioned the sun about May 15 begins to shine with the same
brightness by night as by day, never setting either at night or during
the day but shining continuously in this manner and with this
brightness, except when its light is obscured by clouds, even to July
25. Now you know that the sun is only moderately warm in
Halogaland, and that there is but a little time in summer when it
gives sufficient warmth. Still, there it is with its blazing disk about as
long as we have just stated, and it maintains the daylight about as
long as we have just computed. But neither fact is true of the
southlands, though the sun is hotter there. Now these facts give
evidence that the sun is more distant here, for it gives less heat.
They also testify to the waxing of its course, for, since its light is as
bright by night as by day, its path must lengthen more rapidly here.
But yonder it waxes less and more slowly, for there the night has its
prescribed period both for length and darkness in summer as well as
in winter.
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