Gaspar Schott

After two years of novitiate training, he matriculated at the University of Würzburg on 6 November 1629 to begin a three-year study of Philosophy, following the normal academic path prescribed for Jesuit seminarians.

Schott went, first to the Jesuit seminary of Tournai in Belgium, and subsequently, in 1633, to Caltagirone in Sicily, where he continued his study of Theology.

His return to Germany appears to have been partly motivated by the desire of his Jesuit superiors to mollify the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz, Johann von Schönborn, with whom relations had been strained.

His treatise on "chronometric marvels" is the first work describing a universal joint and providing the classification of gear teeth.

Among his most famous works is the book Magia universalis naturæ et artis (4 vols., Würtzburg, 1657–1659), filled with many mathematical problems and physical experiments, mostly from the areas of optics and acoustics.