On this day in 1592, Pierre Gassendi was born at Champtercier, near Digne, in France.Gassendi was a mathematician, natural philosopher and theologian, most notable for his efforts in reviving and Christianising Epicurean atomism as an alternative to Aristotelianism. He was also a correspondent of Marin Mersenne - the postbox of the time - and of Rene Descartes. He wrote several objections to Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy.
Barry Brundell, the Catholic priest/historian of science famous for impersonating the Pope and Cardinal Bellarmine in retrials of Galileo at UNSW, is an expert on Gassendi. He told me once about how he ended up as such. He said that he had an idea of the kind of argument he wanted to make in his PhD thesis, and the time period he was interested in. He didn't want to focus on anyone who had already been done to death by other historians, so he went searching through a library card catalogue (yes, it was back in those days) and came across Gassendi. Right time period, fitted the argument, had been neglected by historians... perfect! Ah, the wonders of academic research!
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