Carl B. Boyer quotes

The Introductio does not boast an impressive number of editions, yet its influence was pervasive. (Carl B. Boyer)

A Hebrew belief asserted that if Yahweh lays aside his bow and hangs it in the clouds, this is a sign that his anger has subsided.

Carl B. Boyer

North American Indians were among those who thought of the rainbow as the Pathway of Souls, an interpretation found in many other places.

Carl B. Boyer

Associations of the rainbow and the milky way are frequent.

Carl B. Boyer

By many, a rainbow appearing at the birth of a child is taken to be a favorable sign; but in Slavonic accounts a glance from the fay who sits at the foot of the rainbow, combing herself, brings death.

Carl B. Boyer

In Swabia and Bavaria saints pass by the rainbow from heaven to earth; while in Polynesia this is the route of the gods themselves.

Carl B. Boyer

In the Austrian Alps the souls of the righteous are said to ascend the bow to heaven; and in New Zealand the dead chieftains are believed to pass along it to reach their new home.

Carl B. Boyer

In myth and legend the rainbow has been regarded variously as a harbinger of misfortune and as a sign of good luck.

Carl B. Boyer

The conception of the rainbow as a pathway or bridge has been widespread.

Carl B. Boyer

Ptolemy left in his Optics, the earliest surviving table of angles of refraction from air to water.

Carl B. Boyer

$Heron and Olympiodorus had pointed out in antiquity that, in reflection, light followed the shortest possible path, thus accounting for the equality of angles. During the medieval period Alhazen and Grosseteste had suggested that in refraction some such principle was also operating, but they could not discover the law. (Carl B. Boyer)$

Robert [Grosseteste] became much interested in science and scientific method ... He was conscious of the dual approach by means of induction and deduction (resolution and composition); i. e., from the empirical knowledge one proceeds to probable general principles, and from these as premises one them derives conclusions which constitute verifications or falsifications of the principles. This approach to science was not that far removed from Aristotle ...

Carl B. Boyer

Descartes maintained his confidence in the instantaneity of light. ... Yet in his derivation of the law of refraction, Descartes reasoned that light travelled faster in a dense medium than in one less dense. He seems to have had no qualms about comparing infinite magnitudes!

Carl B. Boyer

Robert Grosseteste ... was born at the decisive moment when Greek and Arabic science became accessible in Latin versions.

Carl B. Boyer

But what, after all, are the integers? Everyone thinks that he or she knows, for example, what the number three is - until he or she tries to define or explain it.

Carl B. Boyer