Bacon Roger


Bacon

, Roger Known as "Doctor Mirabilis." 1214?-1292. English friar, scientist, and philosopher whose Opus Majus (1267) argued that Christian studies should encompass the sciences.

Ba·con

(bā′kən), Roger 1214?-1292. English scientist and philosopher who is noted for the wide range of his knowledge and writing on scientific topics. Bacon asserted that mathematics is fundamental to science and that experimentation is essential to test scientific theories, ideas that were very advanced for his time. He did important work in the field of optics, explaining the principles of reflection and refraction and describing spectacles before they came into use. Bacon is also credited with predicting the invention of the airplane, the microscope, and the telescope.