Gassendi

As a young man, the real Cyrano was taught by the idiosyncratic polymath Pierre Gassendi and mixed in free-thinking "libertine" circles.

Gassendi had been strongly influenced by Galileo’s writings, and this example highlights the revolution that Galileo, more than anyone, brought about in the investigation of the world, by establishing the whole business of testing hypotheses by getting your hands dirty in experiments, instead of strolling about discussing ideas purely in philosophical terms.

But as if to prove the old adage that nobody is perfect, among other things Gassendi opposed Harvey’s ideas about the circulation of the blood.

According to atomists such as Gassendi, light was caused by a stream of tiny particles emerging from bright objects, like the Sun, and impinging on the eyes of the viewer.

Gassendi, who was born at Champtercier, in Provence, on 22 January 1592, became a Doctor of Theology in Avignon in 1616, took holy orders the following year and was teaching at the University of Aix when, in 1624, he published a book criticizing the Aristotelian world view.