1. Nicole Oresme wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology, astronomy, philosophy, and theology; was Bishop of Lisieux, a translator, a counselor of King Charles V of France, and one of the most original thinkers of 14th-century Europe.
Nicole Oresme was born c in the village of Allemagnes in the vicinity of Caen, Normandy, in the diocese of Bayeux.
The fact that Nicole Oresme attended the royally sponsored and subsidised College of Navarre, an institution for students too poor to pay their expenses while studying at the University of Paris, makes it probable that he came from a peasant family.
Nicole Oresme studied the "arts" in Paris, together with Jean Buridan, Albert of Saxony and perhaps Marsilius of Inghen, and there received the Magister Artium.
Nicole Oresme was already a regent master in arts by 1342, during the crisis over William of Ockham's natural philosophy.
Nicole Oresme rejected the physical argument that if the Earth were moving the air would be left behind causing a great wind from east to west.
Nicole Oresme noted that it would be more economical for the small Earth to rotate on its axis than the immense sphere of the stars.
Nicole Oresme criticizes all of these as misdirected, though he accepts that prediction is a legitimate area of study, and argues that the effect on the weather is less well known than the effect on great events.
Nicole Oresme observes that sailors and farmers are better at predicting weather than astrologers, and specifically attacks the astrological basis of prediction, noting correctly that the zodiac has moved relative to the fixed stars since the zodiac was first described in ancient times.
The last three parts are what Nicole Oresme considers to concern fortune.
Nicole Oresme classifies interrogations and elections as "totally false" arts, but his critique of nativities is more measured.
Nicole Oresme denies that any path is predetermined by the heavenly bodies, because humans have free will, but he accepts that the heavenly bodies can influence behaviour and habitual mood, via the combination of humours in each person.
In discussing the propagation of light and sound, Nicole Oresme adopted the common medieval doctrine of the multiplication of species, as it had been developed by optical writers such as Alhacen, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Pecham, and Witelo.
Nicole Oresme proposed that the geometrical form of such a figure could be regarded as corresponding to a characteristic of the quality itself.
Nicole Oresme defined a uniform quality as that which is represented by a line parallel to the longitude, and any other quality as difform.
Nicole Oresme considered this analysis applicable to many different qualities such as hotness, whiteness, and sweetness.
Significantly for later developments, Nicole Oresme applied this concept to the analysis of local motion where the latitudo or intensity represented the speed, the longitudo represented the time, and the area of the figure represented the distance travelled.
In virtue of this transposition, the theorem of the latitudo uniformiter difformis became the law of the space traversed in case of uniformly varied motion; thus Nicole Oresme published what was taught over two centuries prior to Galileo's making it famous.
Diagrams of the velocity of an accelerating object against time in On the Latitude of Forms by Nicole Oresme have been cited to credit Nicole Oresme with the discovery of "proto bar charts".
In De configurationibus Nicole Oresme introduces the concept of curvature as a measure of departure from straightness, for circles he has the curvature as being inversely proportional to radius and attempts to extend this to other curves as a continuously varying magnitude.
Significantly, Nicole Oresme developed the first proof of the divergence of the harmonic series.
Nicole Oresme was the first mathematician to prove this fact, and it was not proven again until the 17th century by Pietro Mengoli.
Nicole Oresme worked on fractional powers, and the notion of probability over infinite sequences, ideas which would not be further developed for the next three and five centuries, respectively.
Nicole Oresme provided the first modern vernacular translations of Aristotle's moral works that are still extant today.
Nicole Oresme extensively commented on these texts, thereby expressing some of his political views.
Nicole Oresme categorically denies the right of rebellion since it endangers the common good.
Unlike earlier commentators Nicole Oresme prescribes the law as superior to the king's will.
Nicole Oresme's belief is that humans have a natural right to own property; this property belongs to the individual and community.
In Part 4, Nicole Oresme provides a solution to a political problem as to how a monarch can be held accountable to put the common good before any private affairs.
Nicole Oresme contributed to 19th and 20th century psychology in the fields of cognitive psychology, perception psychology, psychology of consciousness, and psychophysics.
Nicole Oresme discovered the psychology of unconscious and came up with the theory of unconscious conclusion of perception.
Nicole Oresme's economic thought remained well regarded centuries after his death.