2003/11/01 by Stephen Pumfrey, D. R. Tilley · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices #Evolution and Science Education #Brother #Genius #Nothing #Art history #Art #Classics #History #Philosophy #Law #Political science
paper · doi:10.1088/2058-7058/16/11/24
openalex publication_date 2003/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
When William Gilbert of Colchester died on 30 November 1603, England lost one of its greatest Elizabethan scientists. Three years earlier he had published a book called De Magnete, which was nothing less than the first ever work of experimental physics. Its fuller title, translated from the original Latin, was On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies and that Great Magnet the Earth. In 1651 a collection of Gilbert's manuscripts, which had been edited by his half brother, was post-humously published. Going under the title De Mundo Nostro Sublunari Philosophia Nova, the book provided “a new philosophy of our sublunary world”.