Thomas Jefferson was a Scientist

Thomas Jefferson was a scientist. That's how he described himself. When you visit his home at Monticello, Virginia, the moment you enter its portals you find ample evidence of his scientific interests - not just in his immense and varied library, but in copying machines, automatic doors, telescopes and other instruments, some at the cutting edge of early nineteenth-century technology. Some he invented, some he copied, some he purchased. He compared the plants and animals in America with Europe's, uncovered fossils, used the calculus in the design of a new plough. He mastered Newtonian physics. Nature destined him, he said, to be a scientist, but there were no opportunities for scientists in prerevolutionary Virginia. Other, more urgent, needs took precedence. He threw himself into the historic events that were transpiring around him. Once independence was won, he said, later generations could devote themselves to science and scholarship.

Notes:

He called himself such and took delight in technology.

Folksonomies: politics history science technology

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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Sagan , Carl and Druyan , Ann (1997-02-25), The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Ballantine Books, Retrieved on 2011-05-04

Folksonomies: science empiricism rationalism