We talked in the chatter a bit last time about Lavoisier. And of course had a fine time two years ago cataloging the various twists of fate that totally messed up Danton. Was Count Fersen actually Marie Antoinette’s lover, or […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Archive for Chatter
918 results.
Well, there’s 600 right there. And it being episode 600, it’s high time we talk about Frederick stuff. As our Twitter followers know, I recently had a chance to see Mein Name ist Bach, a German film purporting to be […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Beethoven’s usual modus operandi with regards women was precisely this – he would find a family, integrate himself into it, and then fall in love with the wife, knowing full well he could never really act upon it. Solomon, good […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
There were two big positions at the Royal Mint in the 17th century. The Warden was theoretically the big dog, in charge of tracking down counterfeiters and generally ensuring the stability of the realm’s currency. The Master was the one […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Ah, Conde. He belonged to the great era of Roving Generals, and was perhaps the last of their breed. He fought for France until 1652, switched to its arch-enemy Spain when the political intrigue against him destroyed his reputation in […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I don’t believe I’ve talked yet about good books to read about the main players in this modest story arc. Antonia Fraser gets a double nod – her “Royal Charles” is a great book not only for clearing up Charles […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
This is, of course, a younger Robert Hooke than the one Newton ran into before, so he wouldn’t remember what the elder Newton looks like. Sure, elder Newton and young Newton look virtually the same, but recall that elder Newton […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
It feels like forever since I’ve written one of these – and so many good things that could have been said, so many books to be recommended! Ah well, here’s a good place to come back to, because we can […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
And there’s a little lesson in there for all of us who use partially hypnotic super powers to get inevitable enemies to do our bidding in decimating their own kind. It’s learning moments like these that are the real reason […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Newton has it pretty well right here – Laplace’s Mecanique Celeste is arguably the most important book in astronomical physics between Newton’s Principia and Einstein’s relativity papers. He pushed calculus as an analytical tool beyond the wildest dreams of his […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…