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Prutenic Tables
The ''Prutenic Tables'' ( from ''Prutenia'' meaning "Prussia", ), were an ephemeris (astronomical tables) by the astronomer Erasmus Reinhold published in 1551 (reprinted in 1562, 1571 & 1585). They are sometimes called the ''Prussian Tables'' after Albert I, Duke of Prussia, who supported Reinhold and financed the printing. Reinhold calculated this new set of astronomical tables based on Nicolaus Copernicus' ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'', the epochal exposition of Copernican heliocentrism published in 1543. Throughout his explanatory canons, Reinhold used as his paradigm the position of Saturn at the birth of the Duke, on 17 May 1490. With these tables, Reinhold intended to replace the Alfonsine Tables; he added redundant tables to his new tables so that compilers of almanacs familiar with the older Alfonsine Tables could perform all the steps in an analogous manner. Several tables based on the Alfonsine Tables were published after the publication of the Prussian Tab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erasmus Reinhold
Erasmus Reinhold (22 October 1511 – 19 February 1553) was a German astronomer and mathematician, considered to be the most influential astronomical pedagogue of his generation. He was born and died in Saalfeld, Saxony. He was educated, under Jacob Milich, at the University of Wittenberg, where he was first elected dean and later became rector. In 1536 he was appointed professor of higher mathematics by Philipp Melanchthon. In contrast to the limited modern definition, "mathematics" at the time also included applied mathematics, especially astronomy. His colleague, Georg Joachim Rheticus, also studied at Wittenberg and was appointed professor of lower mathematics in 1536. Reinhold catalogued a large number of stars. His publications on astronomy include a commentary (1542, 1553) on Georg Purbach's ''Theoricae novae planetarum''. Reinhold knew about Copernicus and his heliocentric ideas prior to the publication of his '' De revolutionibus'', and made a favourable refere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. For most of its history the Empire comprised the entirety of the modern countries of Germany, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Luxembourg, most of north-central Italy, and large parts of modern-day east France and west Poland. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Roman emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The title lapsed in 924, but was revived in 962 when Otto I, OttoI was crowned emperor by Pope John XII, as Charlemagne's and the Carolingian Empire's successor. From 962 until the 12th century, the empire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomical Tables
In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (; ; , ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects and artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the apparent place, position (and possibly velocity) over time. Historically, positions were given as printed tables of values, given at regular intervals of date and time. The calculation of these tables was one of the history of computing, first applications of mechanical computers. Modern ephemerides are often provided in electronic form. However, printed ephemerides are still produced, as they are useful when computational devices are not available. The astronomical position calculated from an ephemeris is often given in the Spherical coordinate system, spherical polar coordinate system of right ascension and declination, together with the distance from the origin if applicable. Some of the astronomical phenomena of interest to astronomers are eclipses, apparent retrograde motion/p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1551 Books
Year 1551 ( MDLI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. Events January–March * January 4 – Luca Spinola is elected to a two-year term as the new Doge of the Republic of Genoa, succeeding Gaspare Grimaldi Bracelli. * January 11 (5th waxing of Tabodwe 912 ME) – King Bayinnaung of Burma is successful in capturing his ancestral city of Toungoo from his rebellious half-brother Minkhaung II, and sets about to make Toungoo the capital for the first time since 1539. Minkhaung is forgiven by King Bayinnaung rather than being executed, and assists in the King's campaign to capture the neighboring Kingdom of Prome. * January– Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow, and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia preside over the reforming Stoglavy Synod ("Hundred-Chapter") church council. A calendar of the saints and an ecclesiastical law code ('' Stoglav'') are introduced. * February 14 – Alice Arden and her lover, Richard Mosbey, carry out the murder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Owen Gingerich
Owen Jay Gingerich (; March 24, 1930 – May 28, 2023) was an American astronomer who had been professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. In addition to his research and teaching, he had written many books on the history of astronomy. Gingerich was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the International Academy of the History of Science. A committed Christian, he had been active in the American Scientific Affiliation, a society of evangelical scientists.Stephen C. Meyer.Owen Gingerich. ''Eternity''. May 1986. He served on the board of trustees of the Templeton Foundation. Early life Gingerich was born March 24, 1930, to Melvin and Verna (Roth) Gingerich, a Mennonite family in Washington, Iowa, but was raised on the prairies of Kansas where he first became interested in astronomy. His father taught his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe ( ; ; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, ; 14 December 154624 October 1601), generally called Tycho for short, was a Danish astronomer of the Renaissance, known for his comprehensive and unprecedentedly accurate astronomical observations. He was known during his lifetime as an astronomer, astrologer, and alchemist. He was the last major astronomer before the invention of the telescope. Tycho Brahe has also been described as the greatest pre-telescopic astronomer. In 1572, Tycho noticed a completely SN 1572, new star that was brighter than any star or planet. Astonished by the existence of a star that ought not to have been there, he devoted himself to the creation of ever more accurate instruments of measurement over the next fifteen years (1576–1591). Frederick II of Denmark, King Frederick II granted Tycho an estate on the island of Hven and the money to build Uraniborg, the first large observatory in Christian Europe. He later worked underground at Stjerneborg, where he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolphine Tables
The ''Rudolphine Tables'' () consist of a star catalogue and planetary tables published by Johannes Kepler in 1627, using observational data collected by Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). The tables are named in memory of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in whose employ Brahe and Kepler had begun work on the tables. The main purpose of the Rudolphine tables was to allow the computation of the positions of the then known planets of the Solar System, and they were considerably more precise than earlier such tables. Previous tables Star tables had been produced for many centuries and were used to establish the position of the planets relative to the fixed stars (particularly the twelve constellations used in astrology) on a specific date in order to construct horoscopes. Until the end of the 16th century, the most widely used had been the '' Alphonsine tables'', first produced in the 13th century and regularly updated thereafter. These were based on a Ptolemaic, geocentric model of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his Kepler's laws of planetary motion, laws of planetary motion, and his books ''Astronomia nova'', ''Harmonice Mundi'', and ''Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae'', influencing among others Isaac Newton, providing one of the foundations for his theory of Newton's law of universal gravitation, universal gravitation. The variety and impact of his work made Kepler one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, Natural science, natural and modern science. He has been described as the "father of science fiction" for his novel ''Somnium (novel), Somnium''. Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg, Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pope Gregory XIII
Pope Gregory XIII (, , born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian calendar, which remains the internationally accepted civil calendar to this day. Early biography Youth Ugo Boncompagni was born the son of Cristoforo Boncompagni (10 July 1470 – 1546) and Angela Marescalchi, and paternal grandson of Giacomo Boncompagni and Camilla Piattesi, in Bologna, where he studied law and graduated in 1530. He later taught jurisprudence for some years, and his students included notable figures such as Cardinals Alexander Farnese, Reginald Pole and Charles Borromeo. He had an illegitimate son after an affair with Maddalena Fulchini, Giacomo Boncompagni, but before he took holy orders, making him the last Pope to have left issue. Career before papacy At the age of 36 he was summoned to Rome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Clavius
Christopher Clavius, (25 March 1538 – 6 February 1612) was a Jesuit German mathematician, head of mathematicians at the , and astronomer who was a member of the Vatican commission that accepted the proposed calendar invented by Aloysius Lilius, that is known as the Gregorian calendar. Clavius would later write defences and an explanation of the reformed calendar, including an emphatic acknowledgement of Lilius' work. In his last years, he was probably the most respected astronomer in Europe and his textbooks were used for astronomical education for over fifty years in and even out of Europe. Early life Little is known about Christopher Clavius' early life, with the only certain fact being that he was born in Bamberg in either 1538 or 1537. His given name is not known to any great degree of certainty—it is thought by scholars to have perhaps been ''Christoph Clau'' or ''Klau''. There are also some who think that his taken name, ''Clavius'', may be a Latinization of his o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regiomontanus
Johannes Müller von Königsberg (6 June 1436 – 6 July 1476), better known as Regiomontanus (), was a mathematician, astrologer and astronomer of the German Renaissance, active in Vienna, Buda and Nuremberg. His contributions were instrumental in the development of Copernican heliocentrism in the decades following his death. Regiomontanus wrote under the Latinized name of ''Ioannes de Monteregio'' (or ''Monte Regio''; ''Regio Monte''); the toponym ''Regiomontanus'' was first used by Philipp Melanchthon in 1534. He is named after Königsberg in Lower Franconia, not the larger Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad) in Prussia. Life Although little is known of Regiomontanus' early life, it is believed that at eleven years of age, he became a student at the University of Leipzig, Saxony. In 1451 he continued his studies at Alma Mater Rudolfina, the university in Vienna, in the Duchy of Austria, where he became a pupil and friend of Georg von Peuerbach. In 1452 he was awarded hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrologer
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of Celestial objects in astrology, celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in Calendrical calculation, calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindu astrology, Hindus, Chinese astrology, Chinese, and the Maya civilization, Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
