I was just reminded that I wanted to post about this article I read in the NYTimes on Athanasius Kircher. He sounds like quite a funky guy. You've got to admire someone who did stuff like this:
One of Kircher's most daring acts was to write out a long list of Egyptian kings, proving that Egypt existed long before the world was even supposed to have been created. In a dry and sneaky way, Kircher planted the idea that the Bible was wrong. "Kircher found himself imagining deep time," Mr. Grafton said. And that was just the kind of thing that Giordano Bruno, the dogma-hating metaphysician, was executed for
