Search results for "Richard Bradley"
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Combination of simple mirrors – childish game or useful tool?
2015
International audience; The Scottish inventor of the kaleidoscope, Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), examined references to previous combinations of mirrors in his defense of his own invention, The Kaleidoscope, Its History, Theory and Construction (1858). Sir David Brewster who was eager to prove that his invention, dating back to 1816, was genuinely innovative, dismissed the use of what he called “combinations of plane mirrors” as productive of “poor effect”. His examination of the mirror devices described in the works of Gianbattista della Porta (1535-1615) Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) and Richard Bradley (1688-1732), led him to the conclusion that they could hardly have been the result …
Richard Bradley - étude de quelques illustrations pré-évolutionnistes
2015
Richard Bradley (1688-1732) is an English botanist more particularly known for his books on gardening and exotic plants. He published in 1721 a treatise entitled A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature, in which he offers the reader a complete and systematic description of the natural world organized in the best way by a benevolent God according to the principle of the Great Chain of Being. He discovers plenty of evidence of a divine order via the use of the microscope and the recent discoveries on plant sexual reproduction. However, a study of some of the illustrations reveals some doubts about the Great Chain of Being, notably regarding the place of man within nature.