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Biography of Nicolaus StenoName: Nicolaus StenoBirth Date: January 10, 1638 Death Date: November 26, 1686 Place of Birth: Copenhagen, Denmark Nationality: Danish Gender: Male Occupations: naturalist Nicolaus Steno The Danish naturalist Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686) established the law of superposition and the law of constancy of interfacial angles.Nicolaus Steno, originally Niels Stensen, the son of a goldsmith, was born in Copenhagen on Jan. 10, 1638. He entered the University of Copenhagen in 1656 to begin studies in medicine which he continued in Amsterdam and Leiden. After studying anatomy in Paris in 1664, he went to Florence in 1665. He became court physician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II, who subsidized Steno's scientific interests.During this period Steno investigated the geology of Tuscany with its related mineralogical and paleontological problems. His De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus (1669; Introduction to a Dissertation concerning a Solid Body Enclosed by Process of Nature within a Solid) was one of the most fundamental contributions to geology because of Steno's qualities of observation, analysis, and inductive reasoning at a time when scientific research was nothing but …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…Scandinavia. He died in Schwerin on Nov. 26, 1686. Further Reading The most comprehensive biography of Steno, including the translation of all his geological works, is in Steno: Geological Papers, edited by Gustav Scherz and translated by Alex J. Pollock (1969). Some biographical information on Steno is in Gustav Scherz, ed., Historical Symposium on Nicolaus Steno (1965). Other accounts of his life and contributions to geology are in Sir Archibald Geikie, The Founders of Geology (1897); Karl von Zittel, History of Geology and Palaeontology (1901); and Frank D. Adams, The Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences (1938).Moe, Harald, Nicolaus Steno: an illustrated biography: his tireless pursuit of knowledge, his genius, his quest for the absolute, Copenhagen: Rhodos, 1994. Scherz, Gustav, Niels Steensen (Nicolaus Steno), 1638-1686: the goldsmith's son from Copenhagen who won world fame as a pioneering natural scientist but who sacrificed science to become a celebrated servant of God, Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1988. |