{"product_id":"thomas-harriot-a-life-in-science-9780190271855","title":"Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs Robyn Arianrhod shows in this new biography  the most complete to date  Thomas Harriot was a pioneer in both the figurative and literal sense. Navigational adviser and loyal friend to Sir Walter Ralegh  Harriot--whose life was almost exactly contemporaneous to Shakespeares--took part in the first expedition to colonize Virginia in 1585. Not only was he responsible for getting Raleghs ships safely to harbor in the New World  he was also the first European to acquire a working knowledge of an indigenous language from what is today the US  and to record in detail the local peoples way of life. In addition to his groundbreaking navigational  linguistic  and ethnological work  Harriot was the first to use a telescope to map the moons surface  and  independently of Galileo  recorded the behavior of sunspots and discovered the law of free fall. He preceded Newton in his discovery of the properties of the prism and the nature of the rainbow  to name just two more of his unsung \"firsts.\"  Indeed many have argued that Harriot was the best mathematician of his age  and one of the finest experimental scientists of all time. Yet he has remained an elusive figure. He had no close family to pass down records  and few of his letters survive. Most importantly  he never published his scientific discoveries  and not long after his death in 1621 had all but been forgotten. In recent decades  many scholars have been intent on restoring Harriot to his rightful place in scientific history  but Arianrhods biography is the first to pull him fully into the limelight. She has done it the only way it can be done: through his science. Using Harriots re-discovered manuscripts  Arianrhod illuminates the full extent of his scientific and cultural achievements  expertly guiding us through what makes them original and important  and the story behind them.  Harriots papers provide unique insight into the scientific process itself. Though his thinking depended on a more natural  intuitive approach than those who followed him  and who achieved the lasting fame that escaped him  Harriot helped lay the foundations of what in Newtons time would become modern physics. Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science puts a human face to scientific inquiry in the Elizabethan and Jacobean worlds  and at long last gives proper due to the life and times of one of historys most remarkable minds.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45651377193013,"sku":"ByrdShop_019027185X","price":36.72,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780190271855.jpg?v=1781834250","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/thomas-harriot-a-life-in-science-9780190271855","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}