Comte de Buffon Recreating Heat Ray, 1740
Comte de Buffon burning mirrors experiment in Paris, France, 1740. Buffon (in hat, top of frame) had read of the defense of Syracuse, by the Greek mathematician Archimedes who had, supposedly, used mirrors and the Sun's rays to set fire to the attacking Roman fleet. Buffon used 168 mirrors, each measuring 6x9 inches, to successfully ignite wooden logs at a distance of165 feet. Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (September 7, 1707 - April 16, 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author. He epitomizes the revolutionary changes that the Enlightenment brought to the study of nature. 100 years before Darwin, Buffon published his Historie Naturelle (Natural History), a 44 volume encyclopedia describing everything known about the natural world, he wrestled with the similarities of humans and apes and even talked about common ancestry of Man and apes, but ultimately rejected the possibility of a common descent. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. He brought the idea of evolution into the realm of science. He developed a concept of the "unity of type", a precursor of comparative anatomy. More than anyone else, he was responsible for the acceptance of a long-time scale for the history of the earth. He died in 1788 at the age of 80. Engraving from "Vies des savants illustres" by Louis Figuier.
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