Cusanus, Nicolaus [Nicolas of Cusa]

First published Fri Jul 10, 2009; substantive revision Tue Mar 26, 2013
Arguably the most important German thinker of fifteenth century, Nicholas of Cusa (14011464) was also an
ecclesiastical reformer, administrator and cardinal. His life-long effort was to reform and unite the universal and
Roman Church, whether as canon law expert at the Council of Basel and after, as legate to Constantinople and later to
German dioceses and houses of religion, as bishop in his own diocese of Brixen, and as advisor in the papal curia. His
active life as a Church administrator and bishop found written expression in several hundred Latin sermons and more
theoretical background in his writings on ecclesiology, ecumenism, mathematics, philosophy and theology. Cusanus
had an open and curious mind. He was learned and steeped in the Neoplatonic tradition, well aware of both humanist
and scholastic learning, yet mostly self-taught in philosophy and theology. Nicholas anticipated many later ideas in
mathematics, cosmology, astronomy and experimental science while constructing his own original version of
systematic Neoplatonism. A whole range of earlier medieval writers, such as Thierry of Chartre, Ramon Llull and
Albert the Great, influenced Nicholas, but his important intellectual roots are in Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite.
In spite of his significance few later thinkers, apart from Giordano Bruno, understood or were influenced by him until
the late nineteenth century.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cusanus/
Nicholas of Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa (born in 1401 in Bernkastel-Kues, Germany died August 11, 1464 in Todi) was a
Germancardinal of the Catholic Church, a philosopher, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. He is also referred to
asNicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Kues. Nicholas is best known for his philosophy, encapsulated in two
famous phrases: The coincidence of opposites, meaning that the many entities and the diversity of the finite world
coincide with the oneness of the infinite realm of God; and of learned ignorance, the idea that the key to
experiencing mystic unity with God through intellectual intuition is an awareness that a complete conceptual
understanding of God is impossible and can only be acquired in a limited fashion. His thought exhibited strong
elements of mysticism and Platonism within the framework of Christian faith.
Nicholas was instrumental in developing the concept of panentheism, the idea that God is present in all things and
yet transcends all things. His fundamental precept, coincidentia oppositorum (the "coincidence of opposites"), was a
key concept of the Reformation and replaced the medieval belief that God was a separate entity from the material
world. Nicholas of Cusa is seen as one of the transitional thinkers from the Medieval to the modern world. Nicholas of
Cusa also conducted the first modern biological experiment, on the growth of plants, and made important
contributions to the field of mathematics by developing concepts of the infinitesimal and of relative motion.

Mathematics:

Durring the mideival ages mathematics almost diminished.

Scientists spent time studying other things
All math still used the Roman Numberal system untill later changed by Fibbonacci
Calculations were done on an acabus
As more trade came, more math was needed
When the printing press came, more math books were printed for education
Leonardo (fibbonacci) first famous European mathematician
o spread hindu and arabic math in Europe
Nicole Orsme and Rene Descarteso used rectangle coordnates and used the speed time graph for total distance.
o first to use fraction exponents
Regiomontatuso https://sites.google.com/a/sau23students.org/middle-ages/home/medieval-mathseparated
trigonometry from astronomy(he basically invented trig as we know it today)
https://sites.google.com/a/sau23students.org/middle-ages/home/medieval-math