Johann(es) Werner (; February 14, 1468 – May 1522) was a German

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. He was born in

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, where he became a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

. His primary work was in

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

, and

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

, although he was also considered a skilled instrument maker.

Mathematics

His mathematical works were in the areas of

spherical trigonometry Spherical trigonometry is the branch of spherical geometry that deals with the metrical relationships between the edge (geometry), sides and angles of spherical triangles, traditionally expressed using trigonometric functions. On the sphere, ge ...

, as well as

conic section A conic section, conic or a quadratic curve is a curve obtained from a cone's surface intersecting a plane. The three types of conic section are the hyperbola, the parabola, and the ellipse; the circle is a special case of the ellipse, tho ...

s. He published an original work on conic sections in 1522 and is one of several mathematicians sometimes credited with the invention of prosthaphaeresis, which simplifies tedious computations by the use of trigonometric formulas, sometimes called Werner's formulas.

Astronomy

In 1500 he observed a

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

, and kept observations of its movements from June 1 until the 24th. This work further developed the suggestion of Regiomontanus that the occurrences of

eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event which occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ...

s and cometary orbits could be used to find

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...

, giving a practical approach for this method by means of the cross-staff. (The approach did not actually solve the problem as the instrument was not sufficiently accurate.) His trepidations method to describe

precession of the equinoxes In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's Rotation around a fixed axis, rotational axis. In the absence of precession, the astronomical body's orbit would show ...

' was posthumously challenged in 1524 by

Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a mathematical model, model of Celestial spheres#Renaissance, the universe that placed heliocentrism, the Sun rather than Earth at its cen ...

in ''The Letter against Werner''. Edward Rosen, ''Three Copernican Treatises: The Commentariolus of Copernicus, The Letter against Werner, The Narratio Prima of Rheticus'', Columbia University Press, 1939

Geography

He is most noted for his work, ', published in

in 1514, a translation of Claudius Ptolemy's ''

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

''. In it, he refined and promoted the '' Werner map projection'', a cordiform (heart-shape) projection map that had been developed by Johannes Stabius (Stab) of

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

around 1500. This projection would be used for world

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

s and some continental maps through the 16th century and into the 17th century. It was used by Mercator, Oronce Fine, and Ortelius in the late 16th century for maps of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. By the 18th century, it was replaced by the '' Bonne projection'' for continental maps. The ''Werner projection'' is only used today for instructional purposes and as a novelty. In this work, Werner also proposed an astronomical method to determine

, by measuring the position of the moon relative to the background stars. The idea was later discussed in detail by Petrus Apianus in his ' (Landshut 1524) and became known as the lunar distance method.

Meteorology

Many consider Werner as a pioneer of modern

meteorology Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...

and weather forecasting. Between 1513 and 1520, Johann Werner made the first regular observations of the

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

conditions in Germany.

Notable publications

*', Nürnberg 1514 *', Nürnberg, Petrejus 1522
'
Leibzig, B.G. Teubner 1907 ritten early 16th century *', 1546 *'

Honours

The crater Werner on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

is named after him. Some of the trigonometric identities used in prosthaphaeresis, an early method for rapid computation of products, were named '' Werner formulas'' in honor of Werner's role in development of the

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Werner, Johannes 1468 births 1528 deaths Scientists from Nuremberg German cartographers Medieval German mathematicians 15th-century German astronomers German scientific instrument makers 16th-century German mathematicians 16th-century German astronomers 16th-century cartographers 16th-century geographers 16th-century writers in Latin 16th-century German writers 16th-century German male writers 15th-century German mathematicians