Black monks

Pearce the Black Monke. "[On the elixir]." In Lives of the alchemystical philosophers, ed. Francis Barrett, 298-299., 1814. 

Pearce the Black Monke. "[Verses which have appeared before and after Upon the elixir]." In Theatrum chemicum Britannicum, ed. Elias Ashmole, 427-433.. ... 

Pearce the Black Monke. Pearce the Black Monke on the Elixir. rhttp //www.levitv.com/alchemy/tcbpearc.html1. 

Fragment of Pearce the Black Monk and associated verses, [copied Feb. 1585], fos. 142-3. 

The mother order of the Cistercians was the Benedictines, created by St Benedict at Monte Cassino in 529. People commonly called them black monks because of their black tunic and scapular. In stark contrast, the Cistercians adopted a white or grey tunic. It was an emblem of the purity fitting of their Jemsalem discoveries and they became the white monks. 

In the sixteenth century Pierce, the Black Monk, wrote on the Elixir the following ... 

The Monte Carlo method is a suitable way of obtaining values of P j which, when associated with estimates of M j, can be used to assess the criticality of an array. A version of MONK known as BLACK MONK has been written which calculates the collision probabilities, P,y, of neutrons arising from each source region in turn, having a first collision with each of the other units. The collision probability matrix is then multiplied by the surface multiplications, and Eq. (44) is solved for X. 

Another story is that the fourteenth-century German monk and alchemist Berthold Schwartz was the inventor of modern firearms. According to this version of events, it was in Freiburg, Germany, about a century after Roger Bacon s forays into the alchemy of explosives, that the black Monk Berthold married gunpowder with a workable firearm. Berthold s ultimate fate is uncertain. He may have either accidentally blown himself up—the most probable outcome, if he had in fact existed at all—or even been executed because of his infernal discoveries. In fact, very little documentation of his life exists at all ... 

A description of the composition and principles of the manufacture of black-powder appeared in the works of two of the greatest scientists of the Middle Ages Albertus Magnus (Saint Albert the Great), a Dominican Monk born in Bavarian Swabia near 1200, and Roger Bacon of the Franciscan Order, born, according tradition, about 1214 at Ilchester in Somerset, England. 

Berthold der Schwarze. A Ger monk, living in the 14th century, to whom is usually ascribed the invention of firearms using black powder as a propellant... 

Historical. It was mentioned under Black Powder (qv), that accdg to Col IlimefRef 2), the cannon was invented ca 1313 by an unknown German monk. 

A mixture known as black powder revolutionized the art of warfare whenever it was applied to the propulsion of missiles. Black powder is a mixture of potassium nitrate (saltpeter), charcoal, and sulfur in varying proportions, granulation, and purity. A typical composition of a modern black powder is saltpeter 75%, charcoal 15%, and sulfur 10%.7 A mixture of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur with other ingredients was used in China and India in the eleventh century for incendiary and pyrotechnic purposes long before true black powder was invented.8 History often deals in conjecture and opinion and it is not known for certain when and by whom black powder was invented, or when and by whom it was applied to the propulsion of a missile from a firearm. The composition of black powder was first recorded by English Franciscan monk Roger Bacon in 1249, but he did not apply it to the propulsion of a missile from a firearm. This use of black powder is usually credited to a German Franciscan monk Berthold Schwartz in the early fourteenth century.9... 

In the last decade the ecosystems of the Black Sea sustained disastrous changes due to the appearance and mass propagation of jellyfish (Mnemiop-sis leidy). This species was first found in the Black Sea not far from the southeastern coast of Crimea in 1982 and the basis for its appearance was prepared by man. Overfishing and eutrophication led to the disappearance of higher predatory fish and animals, such as turbot, bluefin tuna and monk seal. A sharply reduced population of plankton-eating fish cleared a niche for jellyfish [2], By mid-1980 the jellyfish resource had reached 1 billion tons. 

The tradition that the composition of black powder was discovered and that guns were invented about 1250 (or 1350 or even later) by Berthold Schwarz, a monk of Freiburg i. Br., in Germany, is perpetuated by a monument at that place. Constantin Anklitzen assumed the name of Berthold when he joined the Franciscan order, and was known by his confreres as der schwarzer Berthold because of his interest in black magic. The records of the Franciscan chapter in Freiburg were destroyed or scattered before the Reformation, and there are no contemporaneous accounts of the alleged discovery. Concerning the absence of documents, Oesper says ... 

The alchemist knocked on the gate of the monastery. A monk dressed in black came to the gates. They spoke for a few minutes in the Coptic tongue, and the alchemist bade the boy enter. 

Quinn was dressed in a flowing robe of some incredibly black material it looked like the kind of habit a millionaire monk would wear. There was no crucifix in sight. The face which smiled out at her from the voluminous hood was coldly vulpine. She noticed how everyone in his entourage was very careful not to get too close to him. 

It appears reasonable to apply the ordinary formulae for calculating p2 such as given in report (CP-104) by Christy and Monk. The only objection to this is that the cell is so great in the present case that the production of thermal neutrons is not uniform any more over the cell but shows a dip in the neighborhood of the rod. For this reason the formulae of (CP-104) give a too high thermal utilization p2 and hence tend to exaggerate the effect of the control rods. The equation (7rr is the area of a cell in which there is one control rod, (7ao = oo must be used in CP-104 since the rod is black)... 

The written records of the monk Reinier of Liege from the early thirteenth century describe workers mining black earth in Europe. Blacksmiths used this black earth as fuel for metalworking. Other historical records contain numerons references to coal mining in England, Scotland, and continental Europe throughout the thirteenth century. 

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