Spinoza

Spinoza was born in Amsterdam into a distinguished Jewish émigré family that had fled Catholic persecution in Portugal. He studied non-Hebrew subjects. Such as mathematics and linguistics, privately

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Dinesh ^club

Leeuwenhoek’s use of the lathe may have been similar to the manner a lathe was employed by Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher expelled from the Jewish community in Amsterdam. Born a few weeks after Leeuwenhoek and Vermeer, Spinoa began making lenses as a way of earning a living when he was thrown out of his family’s importing business after his excommunication. Spinoza had an elementary lathe with which he ground his lenses; he then polished the lenses by hand. Like Leeuwenhoek, Spinoza made very small lenses, which he fitted into single lens microscopes. Leeuwenhoek did not mention when he first acquired the lathe, but it is notable that in the summer of 1665 he and Spinoza were living only four miles apart, both were friends of members of Huygebns family, both were practical opticians rather than highly mathematical ones. And, whether or not Leeuwenhoek was Catholic, both men were citizens of the republic who were not formally affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. It is not at all unlikely that by the mid-1660s they were acquainted, and that Spinoza may have inspired Leeuwenhoek to purchase the lathe. This is another historical possibility that must remain tantalizingly speculative. ~ page 112

15 months ago. Edited 15 months ago.

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Spinoza

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