Early 'camera ... obscura available when Vermeer was working, in the third quarter of the 17th century, describes instruments that took the form of closed rooms, tents or cubicles (like Kircher's ...

Back in the 17th century, right around the time when the ideas of great thinkers like Descartes and Newton and Hobbes began to shape the world, a Jesuit priest named Athanasius Kircher also tried ...

In 1665, at the age of 63, the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher appeared to know everything. He had written some 20 books and had several others under way. If you wanted to learn about magnetism ...