Sometimes I have to google the most obscure things lol. I wanted something that wasn't necessarily math that Philip could have in a small speech bubble in the comic, and I started to google what kind of scientific discoveries were made or were already there and accepted by puritans around his era. And this is how I found out that a lot of puritans actually believed in heliocentrism (the sun being at the center of the universe), and saw these kinds of scientific discoveries as a way to appreciate God's design better.
According to google tho, in the early days some puritans were kind of on the fence, split or against these kinds of discoveries, and since this takes place around the early 1600s, I thought it would be pretty cool if Philip was interested in reading about things like this, but most of the villagers weren't fond of it.
Considering some of the stuff Philip has in his journal in the show (screenshots below), I think he was always part of the puritans who loved learning about scientific discoveries.
(Also I have a few ideas about how Philip found some of those books, I might make a comic about that at some point too :3 )
