Jan Marek Marci

Career Marci was born on 13 June 1595 in Lanškroun, near the border between the historical lands Bohemia and Moravia (presently parts of the Czech Republic). He studied under Athanasius Kircher Unlike in the legend spread by Jesuit order, he did not join the Jesuit order shortly before his death.

Work Marci's studies covered the mechanics of colliding bodies, epilepsy, and the refraction of light, as well as other topics. Prior to Marci, the prevailing theory of color assumed that light was modified by the action of a medium to produce color. Most theories were based upon the assumption that color was simply a modification of light varying between whiteness and blackness. Marci preceded Isaac Newton in his belief that "Light is not changed into colors except by a certain refraction in a dense medium; and the diverse species of colors are the products of refraction." Although he thought that different colors were caused by varying angles of incidence across the 1/2 degree apparent diameter of the sun, he stated that each color was condensed or disentangled from the others after refraction into homogeneous or elementary colors of red, green, blue and purple, and that no further change in color was obtained by additional refraction of elementary colors.

Marci at some time came into possession of the Voynich Manuscript, apparently upon the death of its former owner, the alchemist Georg Baresch. He sent the book to his longtime friend Athanasius Kircher, with a cover letter dated 19 August 1666, or possibly 1665. and was present when the manuscript was obtained by Wilfrid Voynich.

He is remembered today by the award of an annual medal to distinguished scientists by the Slovak-Czech Spectroscopy Society.

Books Operatricum Idea (1635) Idearum operaticum idea (1636) De proportione motus seu regula sphygmica (1639) Thaumantias. Liber de arcu coelesti deque colorum apparentium natura, ortu, et causis (Pragae: typis Academicis, 1648) Dissertatio de natura iridis (1650) De longitudine seu differentia inter duos meridianos (Praegae: Typis Georgij Schyparz, 1650) Labyrinthus, in quo via ad circuli quadraturam pluribus modis exhibetur (1654) Philosophia vetus restituta (1662) Othosophia seu philosophia impulsus universalis (1683) A bibliography of Marci is provided by Heinrich Wilhelm Rotermund.