Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow

Book Overview

A comprehensive re-evaluation of Isaac Barrow (1630-1677), one of the more prominent and intriguing of all seventeenth-century men of science. Barrow is remembered today - if at all - only as Sir Isaac Newton's mentor and patron, but he in fact made important contributions to the disciplines of optics and geometry. Moreover, he was a prolific and influential preacher as well as a renowned classical scholar. By seeking to understand Barrow's mathematical work, primarily within the confines of the pre-Newtonian scientific framework, the book offers a substantial rethinking of his scientific acumen. In addition to providing a biographical study of Barrow, it explores the intimate connections among his scientific, philological and religious worldviews in an attempt to convey the complexity of the seventeenth-century culture that gave rise to Isaac Barrow, a breed of polymath that would become increasingly rare with the advent of modern science.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521306949
• ISBN13: 9780521306942
• Release Date: March 1990
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 396 Pages
• Weight: 1.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"