Jean Buridan

Jean Buridan (/ˈbjʊərɪdən/; French: [byʁidɑ̃]; Latin: Johannes Buridanus; c. 1301 – c. 1359/62) was an influential 14th‑century French scholastic philosopher.

Buridan taught in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris for his entire career and focused in particular on logic and on the works of Aristotle. Buridan sowed the seeds of the Copernican Revolution in Europe. He developed the concept of impetus, the first step toward the modern concept of inertia and an important development in the history of medieval science. His name is most familiar through the thought experiment known as Buridan's ass, but the thought experiment does not appear in his extant writings.