Nicholas Oresme c. 1320 – 1382
Nicholas Oresme was a French scholastic philosopher, mathematician, economist, theologian, and bishop of Lisieux, and one of the most original thinkers of the fourteenth century. Trained at the University of Paris and a long-time master of the College of Navarre, he advised King Charles V and translated Aristotle's Ethics, Politics, On the Heavens, and On the Soul into French, coining a wide vocabulary of philosophical terms that survives in modern French. His mathematical work introduced the graphical representation of variable quantities and anticipated key elements of analytic geometry, while his De Configurationibus and De Caelo et Mundo discussed the rotation of the Earth as a mathematically reasonable hypothesis.
Key facts
- Nationality
- French
- Era
- Medieval
- Movements
- Medieval, Scholasticism
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Nicholas Oresme:
“It is mathematically as reasonable to suppose the Earth turns daily as to suppose the heavens do.”
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Attributed to Nicholas Oresme:
“Quantities of any kind may be represented by lines and surfaces.”
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Attributed to Nicholas Oresme:
“Bad money drives out good in circulation.”
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Attributed to Nicholas Oresme:
“The prince has no right to change the value of the coinage at his pleasure.”
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Attributed to Nicholas Oresme:
“Many natural marvels can be explained by ordinary causes, if we examine them with care.”