|
Some
of the links in this feature will take you to sites
within a removable navigational frame. The
framed sites are not part of About.com, nor were
they created by your Guide. For bookmarking,
printing, and navigating info, or if you have any
problems, please visit our page
about
frames. |
Here are the latest responses to our Back-in-Time Survey, in the order of their arrival. Thank you Luke, DRLS, and David for your intriguing replies!
Hypatia.
She died in 415. In case you don't know she was the last caretaker of the Library of Alexandria. By all accounts she was a remarkable woman, a leading scholar in a society in which women weren't supposed to be scholars. She was also legendarily beautiful and turned down a number of male sutiors. I would like to help convince her to distribute works to places where they would be safe. And I would take a copy machine, or a scanner. For four hours we could talk and copy documents together.Luke
Although Luke's time trip is just outside the medieval period, I applaud his choice. To find out more about Hypatia, see N.S. Gill's excellent biography at the Ancient/Classical History site here at About.com.
Return to Back in Time Survey Results
Abelard wuold be good. He was the greatest mind of the middle ages. He was also a thoroughly entertaining person. I would like to have dinner with he and Heloise while he was at the University of Paris. I probably would not warn him about the problens with Heloise's father, because, although it was a personal tragedy for them, he wrote his best books after he went to the monastary.DRLS
For more on Peter Abelard, see the thorough article at the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Return to Back in Time Survey Results
Johannes KeplerHe is my scientific hero. He developed a beautiful, elegant theory which had the misfortune of being absolutely wrong. He spent most of his life trying to prove his idea, and in the end disproved it, but discovered the true answer in the process. He abandoned his theory on the basis of a slight discrepency in the data, whch was just at the limit of resolution. It would have been very easy to ignore the slight discrepency, but he pursued it even when it forced him to overturn his cherished beliefs. He had the courage to follow where the universe led him.
He was also an intersting, quirky, person, like my friends tend to be. He was not interested in the games of the court society. He wanted to get on with his work, but had to put up with Tycho and his entourage.
His writing was elegant, poetic, and filled with enthusiasm for nature. He also wrote one of the first science-fiction stories, describing a flight to the moon where he looked back at the earth in order to help explain the relative motions of the planets.
I would like to meet him shortly after he discovers the laws of planetary motion. After his long struggle to find the answer he was filled with joy at seeing the answer. And even though it was not the answer he was seeking he wrote pasionately about the beauty and harmony of the heavens which he had discovered.
I would like mainly to talk with him, for I would like to know what kind of person he really was. As a historian of science I would ask questions about his work so that I could write my book about this crucial era in the scientific revolution, but then again, his work is what he would want to talk about anyway.
David
For more on Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe, see Kepler's Laws as explained by physics teacher Bill Drennon.
Return to Back in Time Survey Results
The latest response is online.
If you missed the Back-in-Time survey, you can still contribute your 2¢. Use our survey page, answer via email, or head on over to our bulletin board and respond to the post, Back-in-Time Survey. While you're there, check out some of the other replies.
