On February 17, 1600, Domonican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer Giordano Bruno was burned on the stake after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings.
On July 11, 1382, significant philosopher of the later Middle Ages Nicole Oresme passed away. As for many historic people of the middle ages, his actual birthdate is unknown and can only be fixed to a period between 1325 and 1330. Nicole Oresme besides William of Ockham or Jean Buridan -- a French priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe -- is considered as one of the most influential thinkers of the 14th century and he wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology and astronomy, philosophy, and theology.
On October 2, 1608, German-Dutch lensmaker Hans Lippershey applied to the States-General of the Netherlands on October 2, 1608, for a patent for his instrument "for seeing things far away as if they were nearby".
On October 5, 1644 (or according to the old julian calendar September 25), Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Rømer was born. He is best known for making the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light.
Thomas Harriot (c. 1560 – 2 July 1621) was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. Some sources give his surname as Harriott or Hariot. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to Great Britain and Ireland. After graduating from the Oxford University, Harriot traveled to the Americas on expeditions funded by Raleigh, and on his return he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland. At the Earl's house, he became a prolific mathematician and astronomer to whom the theory of refraction is attributed.
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