Athanasius Kircher. Forgotten scientist ahead of his time.
Anastasius Kircher was born in 1602, and lived 78 years, died in 1680.
He was a contemporary of Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, but his name is virtually unknown in our time.
But his contribution to the development of many of the Sciences was very considerable.
His thinking was not very traditional in relation to the science of the time. Kircher was able to find a connection of everything with everything. So his motto was the Latin "Omnia in omnibus" (All in all).
He was fond of all branches of science and in order to read books by leading scientists, have studied 18 languages of the world.
Was very fond of ancient Sciences. Traveled a lot and first made an illustrated encyclopedia of China.
Which was fairly accurate maps of China of that time.
Driven by the passion to know is not known, Kircher, rappelled down the crater of Vesuvius, after the eruption. And he created a picture of the internal structure of the volcano.
On the basis of his observations he made the theory of magnetism of the Earth.
By this Kircher was an inventor of various devices.
He created a mathematical organum, which can be considered the prototype of the computer.
He in fact became the ancestor of cinema, inventing how to accompany a sound image reproduced by the projector.
They invented a device for composing musical recordings of voices of birds.
He invented the "cat piano".
There is a cartoon based on this invention, which is called «The Cat Piano».
Kircher calculated that the tower of Babel could never reach the moon.
Here is his illustration of this topic.
They had invented a listening device that was in his "Museum of Oddities".
It is impossible to describe all his achievements in one article.
Because Anastasius Kircher also made a great contribution to the study of Ancient Egypt, but that's another story.
So to be continued.....