William Gilbert, also known as Gilberd, (24 May 1544 – 30 November 1603) was an English physician, physicist and natural philosopher. He was an early Copernican

Copernican principle

In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle, named after Nicolaus Copernicus, states that the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position. More recently, the principle has been generalized to the relativistic concept that humans are not privileged observers of the universe...

, and passionately rejected both the prevailing Aristotelian philosophy and the Scholastic

Scholasticism

Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...

 method of university teaching. He is remembered today largely for his book De Magnete (1600), and is credited as one of the originators of the term electricity.