Lynn Thorndike

Lynn Thorndike (July 24, 1882 – 28 December 28, 1965) was an American historian, noteworthy for his research on European science in the Middle Ages European medieval science and Alchemy#Medieval Europe European alchemy. He was awarded in 1957 the George Sarton Medal. Quotes Astrology Astrologers throve at the Royal court courts of kings, and sometimes their advice was taken even by him whose very act was held to be under special divine direction. It would be a great mistake to think that the astrologer was maintained for the amusement of king and court, like the jester. His utterances were taken most seriously, and the principles of his art were so generally accepted as to become the commonplaces of the thought and the conversation of daily life. In 1305, for instance, who certain Cardinal (Catholic Church) cardinals urged Pope Clement V to return to Rome, they reminded him that every planet was most powerful in its own house. The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe Issue 62 of Columbia studies in the social sciences; Volume 24 of Studies in history, economics, and public law The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe Columbia University Press 1905 https://books.google.com/books?id=q6ErAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA11 11–110 (quote from p. 11) Instead of describing the personal appearance of the Ancient Rome Roman general and statesman, Titus Flamininus, in his biography of that worthy, Plutarch referred his readers to a bronze statue of him at Rome opposite the Circus Maximus. But to-day the statue has disappeared, and the same is true of most of the manners and customs of the distant past, which were once too familiar for historians to think it worth while to mention them to their readers. The History of Medieval Europe 1917 Houghton Mifflin 2 text at archive.org There is no more familiar, and possibly no more important, figure in the history of Latin learning during the twelfth century that Peter Abelard who flourished at its beginning. His career, as set forth in his own words, illustrated educational conditions in Gaul at that time. His brilliant success as a lecturer on logic and theology at Paris reveals the University of Paris#History great medieval university of that city in embryo. His pioneer work, Sic et Non, set the fashion for the standard method of presentation employed in scholasticism. A History of Magic and Experimental Science: The first thirteen centuries of our era Volume 2 of A History of Magic and Experimental Science by Lynn Thorndike Macmillan 1923 https://books.google.com/books?id=B2OQzgEACAAJ&pg=PA4 4 Many accept the date, July 19, 4241, for the origin of the Egyptian calendar. The Ancient Egypt Egyptians had a day of twenty-four hours, a month of thirty days, and a year of three hundred and sixty-five days made up of twelve months and five extra days which were regarded as unlucky. The division of the month into three ten-day periods seems traceable to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt Middle Kingdom. Their year began on what for us would be July 19, when the star Sirius or Sopdet Sothis first appeared on the eastern horizon simultaneously with the rising sun. This was furthermore about the time of the Flooding of the Nile annual inundation of the Nile which meant so much to the prosperity of the land. 1929 A Short History of Civilization New York F.S. Crofts & Co https://books.google.com/books?id=EqkYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA37 37 (619 pages; 1st published in 1926) External links Thorndike, Lynn. "Whatever Was, Was Right", Presidential Address Read at the Annual Dinner of the American Historical Association, Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D. C., December 29, 1955 Boyer, Carl B. Boyer, Marjorie N. Lynn Thorndike (1882–1965) Technology and Culture 7 3 Summer 1966 https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/894584/summary 391–394 Category:1882 births Category:1965 deaths Category:Academics from the United States Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society Category:Non-fiction authors from the United States Category:Historians from Massachusetts