He realized that rays of light pass so much faster than those of
sound or smell that the time is imperceptible to humans. He knew
that rays of heat and sound penetrate all matter without our
awareness and that opaque bodies offered resistance to passage of
light rays. He knew the power of parabolic concave mirrors to
cause parallel rays to converge after reflection to a focus and
knew that a mirror could be produced that would induce combustion
at a fixed distance. These insights made it possible for jewellers
and weavers to use lenses to view their work instead of glass
globes full of water, which distorted all but the center of the
image: "spherical aberration". The lens, whose opposite surfaces
were sections of spheres, took the place of the the central parts
of the globe over the image.
He knew about magnetic poles attracting if different and repelling
if the same and the relation of magnets' poles to those of the
heavens and earth. He calculated the circumference of the world
and the latitude and longitude of terrestrial positions. He
foresaw sailing around the world.
Bacon began the science of chemistry when he took the empirical
knowledge as to a few metals and their oxides and some of the
principal alkalis, acids, and salts to the abstract level of
metals as compound bodies the elements of which might be separated
and recomposed and changed among the states of solid, liquid, and
gas.
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