Theories of Heat

Abstract

The thermometer, wrote the abbé Nollet, “came for the first time from the hands of a peasant from North Holland. In truth, this peasant, called Drebbel, was not one of those rough men who knew nothing but the work of the land; it seems that he was naturally very industrious, and had a certain familiarity with the physics of his day.” Ingenious inventor no less than impudent charlatan, who made out to have found perpetual motion at the same time as having made great progress in the art of dying fabrics, Drebbel was able to gain the favours of James I. Rudolph II allowed him a fat pension and took him to his heart. Ferdinand II, himself occupied by thermometry, chose him as his son’s tutor.