Thomas Harriot (; c. 1560 – 2 July 1621), also spelled Harriott, Hariot or Heriot, was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer and translator to whom the theory of refraction is attributed. Thomas Harriot was also recognized for his contributions in navigational techniques, working closely with John White to create advanced maps for navigation. While Harriot worked extensively on numerous papers on the subjects of astronomy, mathematics and navigation, he remains obscure because he published little of it, namely only The Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588). This book includes descriptions of English settlements and financial issues in Virginia at the time. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to the British Isles. Harriot invented binary notation and arithmetic several decades before Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, but this remained unknown until the 1920s. He was also the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope, on 5 August 1609, about four months before Galileo Galilei.
After graduating from St Mary Hall, Oxford, Harriot travelled to the Americas, accompanying the 1585 expedition to Roanoke island funded by Sir Walter Raleigh and led by Sir Ralph Lane. He learned the Carolina Algonquian language from two Native Americans, Wanchese and Manteo, and could translate it, making him a vital member of the expedition. On his return to England, he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland.
Biography
Early life and education Born in 1560 in Oxford, England, Thomas Harriot attended St Mary Hall, Oxford. His name appears in the hall's registry dating from 1577. Harriot started to study navigation shortly after receiving a bachelor's degree from Oxford University. The study of navigation that Harriot studied concentrated on the idea of the open seas and how to cross to the New World from the Atlantic Ocean. He used instruments such as the astrolabe and sextants to aid his studies of navigation. After educating himself by incorporating ideals from his astronomic and nautical studies, Harriot taught other captains his navigational techniques in Raleigh. His findings were recorded in the Articon but were later never found.
Roanoke
After his graduation from Oxford in 1580, Harriot was first hired by Sir Walter Raleigh as a mathematics tutor; he used his knowledge of astronomy/astrology to provide navigational expertise, help design Raleigh's ships, and serve as his accountant. Prior to his expedition with Raleigh, Harriot wrote a treatise on navigation. He made efforts to communicate with Manteo and Wanchese, two Native Americans who had been brought to England. Harriot devised a phonetic alphabet to transcribe their Carolina Algonquian language. Harriot and Manteo spent many days in one another's company; Harriot interrogated Manteo closely about life in the New World and learned much that was to the advantage of the English settlers. He believed that Indigenous peoples were intelligent but had inferior technology. In addition, he perceived Native Americans as having a sense of awe towards European inventions:
Many things they sawe with us...as mathematical instruments, sea compasses...[and] spring clocks that seemed to goe of themselves – and many other things we had – were so strange unto them, and so farre exceeded their capacities to comprehend the reason and meanes how they should be made and done, that they thought they were rather the works of gods than men. He made only one expedition, around 1585–86, and spent some time in the New World visiting Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, expanding his knowledge by improving his understanding of the Carolina Algonquian language. As the only Englishman who had learned Carolina Algonquian prior to the voyage, Harriot was vital to the success of the expedition. His account of the voyage, named A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, was published in 1588 (probably written a year before). The True Report contains an early account of the Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favor of the parts of the "True Report" about extractable minerals and resources. As a scientific adviser during the voyage, Harriot was asked by Raleigh to find the most efficient way to stack cannonballs on the deck of the ship. His ensuing theory about the close-packing of spheres shows a striking resemblance to atomism and modern atomic theory, which he was later accused of believing. His correspondence about optics with Johannes Kepler, in which he described some of his ideas, later influenced Kepler's conjecture.
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