HistSTM March Madness—Geometria Round 1

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Geometria Round 1
Finally, round one concludes with match-ups in the Geometria division. This division seems to be a particularly tough one—lots of heroes here. If he hopes to see farther than his competitors this time, Isaac Newton will have first climb over the shoulders of Isidore of Seville. Next, will Euclid’s geometry be enough to overcome Emmy Noether’s abstract algebra? Famous amongst grammar school kids as “The Librarian Who Measured the Earth, Eratosthenes will need more than the support of second graders to overcome Albertus Magnus. Then philosophical medicine meets concrete anatomy in the match-up between Avicenna and Andreas Vesalius.

Robert Boyle’s careful, experimental approach goes against Pliny the Elder’s wide ranging and entertaining book learning. You can just hear Pliny calling Boyle a cynocephalus. Newton’s great proponent in Italy, Laura Bassi takes on the Galen’s early translator, Hunyan ibn Ishaq. Alchemy meets astrology in the contest between Johann Joachim Becher and John Dee. Finally, the great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt will have quite challenge in Charles Darwin.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to vote for the match-ups in the Arithmetica and the Astronomia and the Musica divisions.