尼克尔·奥里斯姆

物理学贡献

奥雷姆用几何方法证明了平均速度定理。奥雷姆于1377年发表的著作《天地通论》提出，当自由落体在加速时，其重量并没有增加，而是冲力增加。假设，挖掘一条直线隧道，从地球表面的A点，穿过地心，挖掘到地球表面的B点，然后将一个重物落入这隧道，则它会从A点，经过地心，移动到B点，就好像单摆从一边摇摆到另外一边。但是，从地心到B点的路途中，它是呈升起状态，而重量只能造成物体掉落，因此冲力与重量不同。

Nicole Oresme (; French: [nikɔl ɔʁɛm]; c. 1325 – 11 July 1382), also known as Nicolas Oresme, Nicholas Oresme, or Nicolas d'Oresme, was a French philosopher of the later Middle Ages. He wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. He was Bishop of Lisieux, a translator, a counselor of King Charles V of France, and one of the most original thinkers of 14th-century Europe.

Life

Nicole Oresme was born c. 1320–1325 in the village of Allemagne (today's Fleury-sur-Orne) in the vicinity of Caen, Normandy, in the diocese of Bayeux. Practically nothing is known concerning his family. The fact that Oresme attended the royally sponsored and subsidised College of Navarre, an institution for students too poor to pay their expenses while studying at the University of Paris, makes it probable that he came from a peasant family.

Oresme studied the "arts" in Paris, together with Jean Buridan (the so-called founder of the French school of natural philosophy), Albert of Saxony and perhaps Marsilius of Inghen, and there received the Magister Artium. He was already a regent master in arts by 1342, during the crisis over William of Ockham's natural philosophy.

In 1348, he was a student of theology in Paris.

Scientific work

Cosmology

In his Livre du ciel et du monde Oresme discussed a range of evidence for and against the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis. From astronomical considerations, he maintained that if the Earth were moving and not the celestial spheres, all the movements that we see in the heavens that are computed by the astronomers would appear exactly the same as if the spheres were rotating around the Earth. He rejected the physical argument that if the Earth were moving the air would be left behind causing a great wind from east to west. In his view the Earth, Water, and Air would all share the same motion. As to the scriptural passage that speaks of the motion of the Sun, he concludes that "this passage conforms to the customary usage of popular speech" and is not to be taken literally.……

Critiques of astrology

In his mathematical work, Oresme developed the notion of incommensurate fractions, fractions that could not be expressed as powers of one another, and made probabilistic, statistical arguments as to their relative frequency.……

Posthumous reputation

Oresme's economic thought remained well regarded centuries after his death. In a 1920 Essay on Medieval Economic Teaching, Irish economist George O'Brien summed up the favorable academic consensus over Oresme's Treatise on the origin, nature, law, and alterations of money:

The merits of this work have excited the unanimous admiration of all who have studied it.……

Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin

Oresme like many who were skeptical of the Shroud of Turin during the medieval period, considered it to be a complete forgery. His thoughts on the relic are found in his treatise called "Problemata" (1370-1392).

Selected works in English translation

Questiones super quatuor libros meteororum, in SC McCluskey, ed, Nicole Oresme on Light, Color and the Rainbow: An Edition and Translation, with introduction and critical notes, of Part of Book Three of his Questiones super quatuor libros meteororum (PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1974, Google Books)

Nicole Oresme and the kinematics of circular motion: Tractatus de commensurabilitate vel incommensurabilitate motuum celi, translated by Edward Grant, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971)

The De moneta of N. Oresme, and English Mint documents, translated by C. Johnson, (London, 1956)