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Petrus Ramus was a multi-faceted Renaissance man, a scholar in logic, rhetorics, and mathematics, and a reformer of universities. The scholar's radical views forced his institution to expel him from his academic position. In all early accounts, Ramus was described as a man with short hair, a characteristic thick beard, and an aquiline nose.
In the 1560s, Ramus shifted his academic attention to the upper four divisions of the seven liberal arts: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (quadrivium). The process was a painful one. Ramus recalled his frustration at an unsuccessful mathematical demonstration this way:
I threw away my drawing-board and ruler, and burst
out in rage against mathematics, because it tortures
so cruelly those who love and are eager for it.
But his painstaking and at times excessive study paid off. He eventually cracked the most difficult parts of the work of the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes, discovered the squaring of the circle, and made numerous mathematical demonstrations. He also created geometrical models, solids, and machines for his display cabinets. The globe and compass held in his hand encapsulate all his effort in conquering the discipline.
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