Books — Valuable Books and Manuscripts
Euclid (Greek: Εὐκλείδης) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the Elements treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely dominated the field until the early 19th century. His system, now referred to as Euclidean geometry, involved new innovations in combination with a synthesis of theories from earlier Greek mathematicians, including Eudoxus of Cnidus, Hippocrates of Chios, Thales and Theaetetus. With Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga, Euclid is generally considered among the greatest mathematicians of antiquity, and one of the most influential in the history of mathematics.
Andreas Vesalius (Dutch: Andries van Wesel) was a Flemish physician, one of the first anatomists of the Renaissance.
Vesalius came from a family of physicians and apothecaries, studied at the Catholic University of Leuven and at the medical school of the University of Paris, where he learned to dissect animals. He also had the opportunity to dissect human cadavers and devoted much time to the study of human bones. He later went to the University of Padua and, after earning his MD degree, was appointed professor of surgery, whose duties included anatomical demonstrations.
Vesalius revolutionized the study of biology and medical practice through his careful description of the anatomy of the human body. Based on observations made by himself, he wrote and illustrated the first complete textbook of anatomy. In 1543 his major work De humani corporis fabrica libri septem ("Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body"), commonly known as Fabrica, was printed. In this epochal work, Vesalius gave far more extensive and accurate descriptions of the human body than anything that had been done by his predecessors.
In the same year, 1543, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V appointed him staff physician of his house, and in 1559 Vesalius became physician to the Madrid court of Charles V's son, Philip II.
Vesalius' work made anatomy a scientific discipline with far-reaching implications not only for physiology but for all of biology.
Michael Faraday was a British physicist and chemist, explorer and experimenter.
Faraday, because of his family's poverty, was unable to receive a formal education, but at the bookbinding shop in London where he worked, he read many books, including encyclopedias and textbooks on chemistry and physics. He persevered in self-education, attending hearings at the City Philosophical Society and later lectures by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution, who as a result took the able student on as an apprentice. In 1825 he replaced the seriously ill Davy in the management of the laboratory of the Royal Institution.
In 1833 Faraday was appointed to a research chair of chemistry created especially for him, where, among other achievements, the scientist liquefied various gases, including chlorine and carbon dioxide. His study of heating and lighting oils led to the discovery of benzene and other hydrocarbons, and he experimented extensively with various steel alloys and optical glasses. Faraday was an excellent experimentalist who presented his ideas in simple language. He is best known for his contributions to the understanding of electricity and electrochemistry. The concepts behind electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and electrolysis were some of his most important discoveries. His electromagnetic research formed the basis of the electromagnetic equations that James Clerk Maxwell developed in the 1850s and 1860s.
Between 1831 and 1855, Faraday read a series of 30 papers before the Royal Society, which were published in his three-volume Experimental Investigations in Electricity. His bibliography numbers some 500 printed articles. By 1844 he had been elected a member of some 70 scientific societies, including the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.