The last man who knew everything [electronic resource] : Thomas Young, the anonymous polymath who proved Newton wrong, explained how we see, cured the sick, and deciphered the Rosetta stone, among other feats of genius / Andrew Robinson.
No one has given the polymath Thomas Young (1773-1829) the all-round examination he so richly deserves-until now. Celebrated biographer Andrew Robinson portrays a man who solved mystery after mystery in the face of ridicule and rejection, and never sought fame. As a physicist, Young challenged the t...
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Full Text (via EBSCO) |
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge, UK :
Open Book Publishers,
2023.
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| Summary: | No one has given the polymath Thomas Young (1773-1829) the all-round examination he so richly deserves-until now. Celebrated biographer Andrew Robinson portrays a man who solved mystery after mystery in the face of ridicule and rejection, and never sought fame. As a physicist, Young challenged the theories of Isaac Newton and proved that light is a wave. As a physician, he showed how the eye focuses and proposed the three-colour theory of vision, only confirmed a century and a half later. As an Egyptologist, he made crucial contributions to deciphering the Rosetta Stone. It is hard to grasp how much Young knew. This biography is the fascinating story of a driven yet modest hero who cared less about what others thought of him than for the joys of an unbridled pursuit of knowledge-with a new foreword by Martin Rees and a new postscript discussing polymathy in the two centuries since the time of Young. It returns this neglected genius to his proper position in the pantheon of great scientific thinkers. |
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| Item Description: | Description based upon print version of record. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (298 pages) |
| ISBN: | 1805110209 9781805110200 |