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( visual material for this lesson )
Roger Bacon is now well remembered for his interest in optics, the behavior of light and vision. A learned friend and classmate swears that he is her husband (only one of her harem of medieval men), and that his opus maius is best read by torchlight in a tent while consuming hallucinogenic fungi and abstaining from bathing. The following is cobbled together from the presentation which our MrsBacon gave subsequent to this expedition, and from Devious Lecturer's discussion following said presentation.
Anyway, Roger Bacon had this kooky thing going called the Multiplication of Species, which I don't understand very well because I spent the relevant lecture drawing diagrams in my notebook. The basic premise seems to be that Stuff radiates Essence-of-Stuff, which is called its Species. Everything has a species, including people and inanimate objects and the sun. Sunlight is the visible radiating species of the Sun. Therefore, the behavior of all species can be deduced from observing the behavior of sunlight. (If it meets a slightly denser substance, it refracts; if it meets a dense enough substance it reflects; that sort of thing.) This forms one part of Roger Bacon's interest in light. Another part, the significance of which I will elucidate momentarily, of Roger Bacon's interest in light is his interest in the Antichrist. When will the Antichrist come? What will it be like when the Antichrist comes? What will the Antichrist do when he comes? Roger Bacon is afraid he may have stumbled upon the answer to the last question.
Observe the diagrams on the left, above. When light shines onto a flat surface, it reflects straight back up.
When light shines on a convex surface, it reflects and spreads out. So far so good.
When light shines on a concave surface, it reflects back inwards toward a central point. Now, thinks Roger Bacon, if you get the angle of the concave surface right, you should be able to get *all* of the light rays meeting together at that central point and beaming outwards. Which would be kinda cool.
The worrying thing is, if you're Roger Bacon, that you understand light to have substance. So all of these rays meeting together and beaming out form a MEGA RAY OF DEATH.
Which is just the sort of thing the Antichrist could use to destroy entire cities at a time. Beware. Consider yourselves warned.
At this point, MrsBacon concluded her presentation, and Devious picked up and went back over the theory of Multiplication of Species, which no one quite understood. On the right hand side of the page you can see my attempt to put the theory into a simple and practical form that I might remember. Which worked, as it happens. I still remember the application of Multiplication of Species to academic flirtation, which is more than you can say for most of what went over my head in Devious' course. Having figured this out, I passed the notebook to MrsBacon and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goblinpaladin, and poor Devious was much befuddled as to why three out of his four best students spent the remainder of the lesson sniggering and passing notes. We had to show him what I'd done after class, and I believe he was quite amused.
Roger Bacon is now well remembered for his interest in optics, the behavior of light and vision. A learned friend and classmate swears that he is her husband (only one of her harem of medieval men), and that his opus maius is best read by torchlight in a tent while consuming hallucinogenic fungi and abstaining from bathing. The following is cobbled together from the presentation which our MrsBacon gave subsequent to this expedition, and from Devious Lecturer's discussion following said presentation.
Anyway, Roger Bacon had this kooky thing going called the Multiplication of Species, which I don't understand very well because I spent the relevant lecture drawing diagrams in my notebook. The basic premise seems to be that Stuff radiates Essence-of-Stuff, which is called its Species. Everything has a species, including people and inanimate objects and the sun. Sunlight is the visible radiating species of the Sun. Therefore, the behavior of all species can be deduced from observing the behavior of sunlight. (If it meets a slightly denser substance, it refracts; if it meets a dense enough substance it reflects; that sort of thing.) This forms one part of Roger Bacon's interest in light. Another part, the significance of which I will elucidate momentarily, of Roger Bacon's interest in light is his interest in the Antichrist. When will the Antichrist come? What will it be like when the Antichrist comes? What will the Antichrist do when he comes? Roger Bacon is afraid he may have stumbled upon the answer to the last question.
Observe the diagrams on the left, above. When light shines onto a flat surface, it reflects straight back up.
When light shines on a convex surface, it reflects and spreads out. So far so good.
When light shines on a concave surface, it reflects back inwards toward a central point. Now, thinks Roger Bacon, if you get the angle of the concave surface right, you should be able to get *all* of the light rays meeting together at that central point and beaming outwards. Which would be kinda cool.
The worrying thing is, if you're Roger Bacon, that you understand light to have substance. So all of these rays meeting together and beaming out form a MEGA RAY OF DEATH.
Which is just the sort of thing the Antichrist could use to destroy entire cities at a time. Beware. Consider yourselves warned.
At this point, MrsBacon concluded her presentation, and Devious picked up and went back over the theory of Multiplication of Species, which no one quite understood. On the right hand side of the page you can see my attempt to put the theory into a simple and practical form that I might remember. Which worked, as it happens. I still remember the application of Multiplication of Species to academic flirtation, which is more than you can say for most of what went over my head in Devious' course. Having figured this out, I passed the notebook to MrsBacon and
goblinpaladin, and poor Devious was much befuddled as to why three out of his four best students spent the remainder of the lesson sniggering and passing notes. We had to show him what I'd done after class, and I believe he was quite amused.