Bacon, Roger

(born c. 1220, Ilchester, Somerset, or Bisley, Gloucester?, Eng.—died 1292, Oxford) English scientist and philosopher. He was educated at Oxford and the University of Paris and joined the Franciscan order in 1247. He displayed a prodigious energy and zeal in the pursuit of experimental science; his studies eventually won him a place in popular literature as a worker of wonders. He was the first European to describe in detail the process of making gunpowder, and he proposed flying machines and motorized ships and carriages. He therefore represents a historically precocious expression of the empirical spirit of experimental science, even though his actual practice of it seems to have been exaggerated. His philosophical thought was essentially Aristotelian, though he was critical of the methods of theologians such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, arguing that a more accurate experimental knowledge of nature would be of great value in confirming the Christian faith. He also wrote on mathematics and logic. He was condemned to prison c. 1277 by his fellow Franciscans because of “suspected novelties” in his teaching.

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