Gunpowder and Geometry: The Life of Charles Hutton, Pit Boy, Mathematician and Scientific Rebel

Author: Benjamin Wardhaugh Format: Hardback Number of Pages: 320 August, 1755. Newcastle, on the north bank of the Tyne. In the fields, men and women are getting the harvest in. Sunlight, or rain. Scudding clouds and backbreaking labour. Three hundred feet underground, young Charles Hutton is at the coalface. Cramped, dust-choked, wielding a five-pound pick by candlelight. Eighteen years old, he's been down the pits on and off for more than a decade, and now it looks like a life...Read more