Medieval Alchemists Were Right! You Can Turn Lead into Gold
Scientists at CERN have achieved what medieval alchemists once dreamed of by transforming lead into gold using high-energy collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.
New Medieval Books: Inside the Stargazer’s Palace
In the final decades of the Middle Ages and into the 16th century, Europe experienced a renewed emphasis on scientific inquiry. This book explores that transformation—especially in the field of astronomy—through the lives and work of figures such as John Dee and Tycho Brahe.
10 Medieval Articles from the journals of the Royal Society
Here are ten fascinating articles from the Royal Society’s journals that shed light on the Middle Ages.
Ibn Sina and Biruni with S. Frederick Starr – The Medieval Podcast, Episode 266
Experimenting, translating, and philosophizing about physics and metaphysics, biology and geology, two great thinkers from Central Asia stand out both for their achievements, and their completely opposite points of view. This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with S. Frederick Starr about the work and the lives of Ibn Sina (aka Avicenna) and Biruni, their contributions to science and culture, and the reason they outright despised each other.
New Medieval Books: Lumen: The Art and Science of Light
This book, featuring a dozen essays and over a hundred images, illuminates the significance of light in the Middle Ages. From scientific studies on optics to the ways sunlight filled churches, medieval society harnessed light in stunning and inventive ways.
Translatio Scientiae: Chaucer, the Astrolabe, and Making English Scientific
I examine how Chaucer’s vocabularies—whether translated or adopted—offer new possibilities for using English as a language for scientific knowledge and for articulating and even creating new communities of scientific readers and practitioners.
New Medieval Books: The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham Books IV-V
A translation of a section from Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham’s work, Book of Optics, which was written between 1011 and 1021. It is a major work of scientific history, changing the way people understood eyesight and light.
New Medieval Books: Defining Nature’s Limits
Focusing on the 16th century, this book looks at how the Catholic Church tried to enforce their religious thinking when it came to science and magic in the late Middle Ages and early modern period.
Why do we sleep? Scientific Questions Answered in the Sixth Century
The Byzantine philosopher Priscian of Lydia offers these answers to some common questions.
New Medieval Books: The Genius of Their Age
A double biography of two of the most important scholars from the Middle Ages. Working out of Central Asia in the 11th century, Ibn Sina and Biruni both made significant impacts on several scientific fields.
What are volcanoes? A medieval answer
An explanation of volcanoes and why they erupt from a medieval scientist.
Medieval astrolabe reveals cross-cultural scientific exchange
Medieval astrolabes are seen as one of the great examples of medieval science. A new article reveals how one of these artifacts from the 11th century bears both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions making it one of the oldest examples ever discovered and one of only a handful known in the world.
The Alchemy Craze in Medieval London
If you were living in London in the mid-15th century, you may have got caught up in the alchemy craze. The idea of turning base metals into gold and silver was seducing many people, including the King of England.
About time, with Jesse Torgerson
Jesse Torgerson and I take a stab at understanding time, as it was measured, structured, and experienced in so many overlapping ways by Christian east Romans. Their days, months, and years were defined by the state tax cycle, the Church festival cycle, and nature itself, to name the most important temporal grids.
Wonders and Rarities with Travis Zadeh
One of the favourite activities of medieval scholars was to write massive encyclopedias, distilling every last detail of the known world into book form to share with an insatiably curious public. This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with Travis Zadeh about a thirteenth-century bestseller written by a scholar named Qazwini, who brought together natural philosophy and what we might now call supernatural philosophy to reveal the workings of the world and the universe.
10 Medieval Inventions that Changed the World
Many inventions from the Middle Ages have had lasting importance, even to the present day. Some are physical objects, while others are more of a place – our list looks at ten inventions that made a big impact on our daily lives.
Forensic Sciences in the Middle Ages
This article looks at the state of forensic sciences in the Middle Ages and unveils the role of medical practitioners and coroners in the tedious process of crime-solving.
13 Magic Tricks from the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages are thought to be an age of wizards and magic. While stories about Merlin might just be literature, medieval people did know magic tricks – many of which are very similar to modern ones.
New Medieval Books: The Other Renaissance
A work that straddles that Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, The Other Renaissance aims to give readers introductions to many important figures and their importance to the modern world.
New Medieval Books: Wonders and Rarities
This book introduces us to the life and works of Zakariyyāʾ Qazwīnī, a 13th-century scholar from Iran. He wrote about the cosmos and the geography of the world, producing an influential book known as Wonders and Rarities.
The Emerald Tablet and the Origins of Chemistry
A look at a mysterious medieval text and how it became an important text in the history of science.
Noel Swerdlow, one of the ‘greatest scholars’ of the history of science, passes away
Noel M. Swerdlow, a distinguished historian of science and the world’s foremost expert on Ptolemy and Copernicus, died July 24. He was 79.
Astronomical Instruments in the Middle Ages: More than just a timepiece
While astronomical instruments could be as useful to the medieval person as Google Maps is to us today, you pretty much needed a whole degree in mathematics to figure out how to use them properly.
Science in the Middle Ages – Rediscovering its Latent Genius
Did “science” exist as we commonly refer to it today in the Middle Ages, or was research and study treated as a mere curiosity?
