Thomas Hobbes was born on April 5, 1588 in Westport, England. Hobbes's father was an easily angered vicar of a Wiltshire parish church. Disgraced after being a part of a fight, he disappeared and left his three kids to the care of his brother, who lived in Malmesbury. When Thomas was only four years old, he was sent to school at Westport, then attended a private English school, and finally, at fifteen, was sent to Magdalen Hall at the University of Oxford, where he took an arts degree and, over time developed an interest in maps.
For the majority of his adult life, Hobbes worked for different branches of the Cavendish family under William Cavendish as a tutor and as a political advisor. Soon after receiving his degree at Oxford in 1608, he was employed by William Cavendish as a page and tutor. In 1610, Hobbes traveled with William to France, Italy, and Germany, where he met other influential scholars, such as Francis Bacon and Ben Jonson. Over many decades, Thomas served the Cavendish family as a tutor, political advisor, and many other things. Under the employment with the Cavendish family, Hobbes could become connected with the royalist side in disputes between the king and Parliament. In 1640, Hobbes wrote a piece defending King Charles I's wide interpretation of his own rights in these matters. This conflict eventually led to the English Civil Wars, which led to the king being executed and a declaration of a republic, and Hobbes left the country to keep safe from any conflicts and lived in France from 1640 to 1651.
Although Hobbes had never been educated in mathematics or science at Oxford, a branch in the Cavendish family who were gifted in these branches had struck his interest. Over time he began top gain enough knowledge of his own and began to venture in these topics. His knowledge was portrayed in a trilogy of books that la...