Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788 — 1827)was a Catholic scientist in France in the early 1800’s. He made incredible contributions to the understanding of light, being one of the earliest and best champions of the idea that light is a waveform. He entered the French school for engineers around 1804 and then served in the engineering corps [...]
A week or two ago I mentioned reading Pride and Prejudice on Project Gutenberg. The particular edition that was up on that site had adorable illustrations and illuminated capitals done by an artist named Hugh Thomson. I went looking and discovered that Thomson had illustrated several other books, including one called Highways and Byways in [...]
Saint Margaret of Scotland fascinates me. I never heard of her until I was reading a lot of mid-20th century British writers. If they mention Scotland, and a lot of them do, she is apt to come up. Her birth date is not clearly known, but is given as around 1045, or perhaps, 1047. Maybe [...]
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