UNIVERSITY of OKLAHOMA HISTORY of SCIENCE 2 University of Oklahoma FOUNDING the OU ACADEMY of the LYNX
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Simon Stevin
II THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF SIMON STEVIN E D IT E D BY ERNST CRONE, E. J. DIJKSTERHUIS, R. J. FORBES M. G. J. MINNAERT, A. PANNEKOEK A M ST E R D A M C. V. SW ETS & Z E IT L IN G E R J m THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF SIMON STEVIN VOLUME II MATHEMATICS E D IT E D BY D. J. STRUIK PROFESSOR AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE (MASS.) A M S T E R D A M C. V. SW ETS & Z E IT L IN G E R 1958 The edition of this volume II of the principal works of SIMON STEVIN devoted to his mathematical publications, has been rendered possible through the financial aid of the Koninklijke. Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Science) Printed by Jan de Lange, Deventer, Holland The following edition of the Principal Works of SIMON STEVIN has been brought about at the initiative of the Physics Section of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Weten schappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences) by a committee consisting of the following members: ERNST CRONE, Chairman of the Netherlands Maritime Museum, Amsterdam E. J. DIJKSTERHUIS, Professor of the History of Science at the Universities of Leiden and Utrecht R. J. FORBES, Professor of the History of Science at the Municipal University of Amsterdam M. G. J. M INNAERT, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Utrecht A. PANNEKOEK, Former Professor of Astronomy at the Municipal University of Amsterdam The Dutch texts of STEVIN as well as the introductions and notes have been translated into English or revised by Miss C. -
2019 Publication Year 2020-05-18T17:09:00Z Acceptance
Publication Year 2019 Acceptance in OA@INAF 2020-05-18T17:09:00Z Title Della Porta, Colonna e Fontana e le prime osservazioni astronomiche a Napoli Authors GARGANO, MAURO DOI 10.35948/9788869521188/c25 Handle http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/24943 Della Porta, Colonna e Fontana e le prime osservazioni astronomiche a Napoli Mauro Gargano ‒ INAF ‒ Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte ‒ [email protected] Abstract: Giovan Battista Della Porta is known for his idea of experimental science, Fabio Colonna is well-known for his botanical studies, and Fran- cesco Fontana for his powerful telescopes and the exact observations of the Moon and planets. All three interested in astronomy. But when and what was observed in Naples for the first time with a telescope? And by whom? This communication, based on the correspondence of the protagonists, wants to contribute to retrace the events of the first Neapolitan astronomical observations. Keywords: Astronomy, Telescopes, Observations, Giovanni Battista Della Porta, Fabio Colonna, Francesco Fontana. 1. Il cannocchiale di Galileo «El S.r Galileo de i Galiliegi, vero arecoltore delle smatemateghe, e slenzaore in lo Bo de Pava à gi scuelari della so prefission» è l’intestazione di una dedicatoria in dialetto pavano scritta nel marzo 1608 dal gioviale poeta e pittore padovano Giuseppe Gagliardi (Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (FBNC), Manoscritti Galileiani (Mss. Gal.), Gagliardi 1608, P. I, T. III, cc. 68-82). In quest’epoca il “Coltivatore” Galilei è senza dubbio un raffinato professore dell’Università di Padova e un eccellente costruttore di strumenti matematici. Lo scienziato di Pisa comincia a praticare l’astronomia con l’esplosione “de stella nova in pede serpentari” verso la fine dell’ottobre 1604. -
Curriculum Vitae
1 CURRICULUM VITAE Name: Paola Malanotte Rizzoli Place of Birth: Lonigo (Vicenza), Italy Home Address: 75 Cambridge Parkway, #W502 Cambridge, MA 02142 Work Address: Department of Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room 54-1416 . Cambridge, MA 02139 EDUCATION 1978 Ph.D., Physical Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, Dissertation: “Solitary Rossby Waves Over Variable Relief and Their Stability Properties” 1968 Ph.D., Physics, University of Padua, Italy, “summa cum laude” Dissertation: “Quantum-mechanical structure of biologically important molecules. Investigation of the complex molecules of nucleic acids” 1963 B.S., Physics and Mathematics, Lyceum “Benedetti,” Venice, Italy; with highest honors EMPLOYMENT 1997 - 2009 MIT Director of the Joint Program in Oceanography and Ocean Engineering between M.I.T. and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) 1992- Professor of Physical Oceanography, M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts 1987-1992 Associate Professor of Physical Oceanography with tenure, M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts 1985-1987 Associate Professor of Oceanography, M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981-1985 Assistant Professor of Oceanography, M.I.T., Cambridge, Massachusetts 1978-1980 Cecil and Ida Green Scholar at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California at San Diego (when on leave of absence from Italy) 2 1976-1981 Senior Scientist (tenured) at the “Istituto Dinamica Grande Masse,” CNR, Venice, Italy 1972-1976 -
Physics in Italy from 1870 to 1940 Antonio Casella, Silvana Galdabini
Physics in Italy from 1870 to 1940 Antonio Casella, Silvana Galdabini, Giuseppe Giuliani, Paolantonio Marazzini Gruppo Nazionale di Storia della Fisica del CNR, Unit`adi Pavia The fact that, as you know, this Conference will be followed by another one dedicated to a century of physics in Italy, has induced us to present here firstly a general overview of our research, then a brief outline af our most recent findings. Our research started in the fall of 1983 as a project limited to the pre- history of solid state physics in Italy. It began with a study of the institutional context of physical research between 1870 and 1940, with particular attention given to the four decades of our century. The analisys of scientific production in fields that would have become parts of today solid state physics has not been completed. We have studied in some detail only five topics: magnetic properties • galvanomagnetic effects • elastic properties • photoelectric effect and photoconductivity • electric conductivity. • However it must be stressed that these five topics cover about 75% of the entire production concerning `solid state'. Moreover, it is in these fields that Italian contribution has been, for several reasons, more interesting. The results of this first effort have been described and discussed, among others, in the publications reported in footnotes.1;2;3;4 The study of the pre-history of solid state physics has found a kind of accomplishment in the organisation of a meeting on `The origins of solid state physics in Italy: 1945-1960', held in Pavia in 1987. Apart from five lectures given by historians, the contributions came from physicists who contributed to the development of this field in Italy (16) and abroad (3). -
Beginnings of Trigonometry
Beginnings of Trigonometry Trigonometry is an area of mathematics used for determining geometric quantities. Its name, first published in 1595 by B. Pitiscus, means "the study of trigons (triangles)" in Latin. Ancient Greek Mathematicians first used trigonometric functions with the chords of a circle. The first to publish these chords in 140 BC was Hipparchus, who is now called the founder of trigonometry. In AD 100, Menelaus, another Greek mathematician, published six lost books of tables of chords. Ptolemy, a Babylonian, also wrote a book of chords. Using chords, Ptolemy knew that sin(xy+= ) sin x cos y + cos x sin y and abc = = sinABC sin sin In his great astronomical handbook, The Almagest, Ptolemy provided a table of chords for steps of °, from 0° to 180°, that is accurate to 1/3600 of a unit. Ptolemy's degree of accuracy is due in part because the Hellenistic Greeks had adopted the Babylonian base- 60 (sexagesimal) numeration system. He also explained his method for constructing his table of chords, and in the course of the book he gave many examples of how to use the table to find unknown parts of triangles from known parts. Ptolemy provided what is now known as Menelaus's theorem for solving spherical triangles, as well, and for several centuries his trigonometry was the primary introduction to the subject for any astronomer. Sine first appeared in the work of Aryabhata, a Hindu. He used the word jya for sine. He also published the first sine tables. Brahmagupta, in 628, also published a table of sines for any angle. -
On the Alleged Use of Keplerian Telescopes in Naples in the 1610S
On the Alleged Use of Keplerian Telescopes in Naples in the 1610s By Paolo Del Santo Museo Galileo: Institute and Museum of History of Science – Florence (Italy) Abstract The alleged use of Keplerian telescopes by Fabio Colonna (c. 1567 – 1640), in Naples, since as early as October 1614, as claimed in some recent papers, is shown to be in fact untenable and due to a misconception. At the 37th Annual Conference of the Società Italiana degli Storici della Fisica e dell'Astronomia (Italian Society of the Historians of Physics and Astronomy, SISFA), held in Bari in September 2017, Mauro Gargano gave a talk entitled Della Porta, Colonna e Fontana e le prime osservazioni astronomiche a Napoli. This contribution, which appeared in the Proceedings of the Conference (Gargano, 2019a), was then followed by a paper —actually, very close to the former, which, in turn, is very close to a previous one (Gargano, 2017)— published, in the same year, in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (Gargano, 2019b). In both of these writings, Gargano claimed that the Neapolitan naturalist Fabio Colonna (c. 1567 – 1640), member of the Accademia dei Lincei, would have made observations with a so-called “Keplerian” or “astronomical” telescope (i.e. with converging eyepiece), in the early autumn of 1614. The events related to the birth and development of Keplerian telescope —named after Johannes Kepler, who theorised this optical configuration in his Dioptrice, published in 1611— are complex and not well-documented, and their examination lies beyond the scope of this paper. However, from a historiographical point of view, the news that someone was already using such a configuration since as early as autumn 1614 for astronomical observations, if true, would have not negligible implications, which Gargano himself does not seem to realize. -
Federico Cesi E L'accademia Dei Lincei
GIUSEPPE MONTALENTI Federico Cesi e l’Accademia dei Lincei Con scritti di GIOVANNI CONSO, FRANCESCO GABRIELI GIOVANNI PUGLIESE CARRATELLI Nella sede dell’Istituto Napoli 2006 copertina 2 ISTITUTO ITALIANO PER GLI STUDI FILOSOFICI QUADERNI DEL TRENTENNALE 1975-2005 11 1 2 GIUSEPPE MONTALENTI Federico Cesi e l’Accademia dei Lincei Con scritti di GIOVANNI CONSO, FRANCESCO GABRIELI GIOVANNI PUGLIESE CARRATELLI Nella sede dell’Istituto Napoli 2006 3 A cura di Antonio Gargano, Segretario generale dell’Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici © Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici Palazzo Serra di Cassano Napoli - Via Monte di Dio, 14 4 INDICE GIUSEPPE MONTALENTI, Federico Cesi e l’Accademia dei Lincei 7 GIOVANNI CONSO, Indirizzo di saluto al Convegno “La ricerca in Italia” 29 FRANCESCO GABRIELI, L’Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici e gli studi sulle civiltà orientali 35 FRANCESCO GABRIELI, La mostra delle pubblicazioni dell’Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici 41 GIOVANNI PUGLIESE CARRATELLI, Libertà di ricerca e di insegnamento e funzione dell’Università di Stato 43 APPENDICE FEDERICO CESI, Del natural desiderio di sapere et Institutione dei Lincei per adempimento di esso 61 5 6 GIUSEPPE MONTALENTI FEDERICO CESI E L’ACCADEMIA DEI LINCEI * Con vivo piacere ho accettato l’onorifico incarico di inaugurare l’edizione napoletana della mostra che l’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei ha organizzato ed esposto a Roma nelle prestigiose stanze della Farnesina in occasione del quarto centenario della nascita del fondatore dell’Accademia dei Lincei, Federico Cesi. Sono lieto di avere l’occasione di ritrovarmi a prendere la parola in questa città, Napoli, nella quale ho vissuto per piú di venti anni, lavorando sia alla Stazione Zoologica, sia all’Università, alla cattedra di genetica. -
Medical Competence, Anatomy and the Polity in Seventeenth-Century Rome
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PubMed Central Renaissance Studies Vol. 21 No. 4 BlackwellOxford,RESTRenaissance0269-1213©XXXOriginalMedicine 2007 TheUKArticles in Publishing seventeenth-century Author Studies Journal Ltd compilation Rome © 2007 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Silvia De Renzi Medical competence, anatomy and the polity in seventeenth-century Rome Silvia De Renzi In April 1624, while walking in the Vatican gardens, Pope Urban VIII was entertained by a small group discussing the latest startling natural phenom- enon, a two-headed calf. With the pontiff were his secretary, his theologian and two physicians, Johannes Faber and Giulio Mancini. A few days before, Faber had received the calf from the Cardinal Nephew and, having dissected it in front of students at his home, now presented his drawings to the pope.1 Five months later, by papal order, Mancini called Faber to attend the autopsy of Marco Antonio De Dominis. One of the tragic figures of the Counter- Reformation, De Dominis had died in jail after controversially recanting his heretical views. Rumours of poisoning soon circulated and an autopsy was ordered, but the doctors judged it a natural death.2 These episodes tend to appear in unrelated historical accounts. De Dominis’ demise, including the subsequent burning of his corpse, has been explored by religious historians discussing ill-fated instances of reform in the Catholic Church.3 Historian of science Paula Findlen has analysed the con- versation on the two-headed calf as an example of how, by becoming courtly displays, natural investigations gained unprecedented importance in the early modern period.4 In neither account has the presence of physicians been remarked. -
Knowledge, Freedom, and Brotherly Love: Homosociality and the Accademia Dei Lincei Mario Biagioli Special Cluster: Gender and Early-Modern Science
Copyright © 1995, The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for Literature and Science. All rights reserved. Configurations 3.2 (1995) 139-166 ../toc Knowledge, Freedom, and Brotherly Love: Homosociality and the Accademia dei Lincei Mario Biagioli Special Cluster: Gender and Early-Modern Science The Accademia dei Lincei, often considered the earliest of scientific organizations, was established in 1603 by Federico Cesi, a young Roman aristocrat who was soon to become prince of San Polo and Sant'Angelo, duke of Aquasparta, and marquis of Monticelli. 1 After a period of very limited activity, which lasted until 1609, the academy quickly revived its membership and visibility, and by 1611 it included prestigious figures like Galileo and Giovanbattista della Porta. Its ranks continued to increase until 1625, when it listed thirty-two members, most of them located in Rome, Naples, and Florence. 2 The Lincei became an important reference point in the fledgling Italian philosophical community and played a relevant role in Galileo's later career, but it collapsed shortly after the prince's death in 1630. Cesi left behind a vast, elaborate, and well-documented academic project that usually bore little more than a family resemblance to the [End Page 139] actual academy. This essay analyzes the gender dimensions of Cesi's project and traces them into some aspects of the academy's historical record. Unlike all other seventeenth-century scientific academies that excluded women from their membership without making that ban explicit or providing reasons for their policies, the Lincei's oath stated that the academy was a "philosophical army" whose recruits were exclusively male. -
Renaissance and Reformation, 1997
^ A Catholic Theologian Responds to Copemicanism: IRVING A. KELTER The Theological Judicium of Paolo Foscarini's Lettera Summary: This paper is an in-depth analysis of the Carmelite Paolo Foscarini 's role in the debate on Copernican cosmology in the early seven- teenth century. Using as a point of departure the 1616 Judicium issued by the Catholic Church against Foscarini's pro-Copemican treatise, this analysis will lead to a clearer understanding ofthe discussions on thefluidity or hardness of celestial bodies, and more generally on the conflicting Biblical and Copernican models. On March 5, 1616, the Roman Catholic Church's Sacred Congregation of the Index issued a decree prohibiting, until corrected, both Nicholas Copernicus' classic work, the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, and the In lob commentaria by the Spanish theologian Diego de Zufiiga, a portion of which dealt with the reconciliation of the Copernican system with the Bible. The same decree condemned absolutely the Lettera . sopra I'opinione de' Pittagorici e del Copemico della mobilita della terra e stabilita del sole by the Carmelite Paolo Foscarini, a work which appeared in print in 1615.^ This treatise by Foscarini was prohibited on the twin grounds of claiming that the new astronomy of Copernicus was consonant with the truth and reconcilable with the Bible. In his role as an ardent exponent of the Copernican cosmology and ally of Galileo, Foscarini has been duly noticed but insufficiently studied by historians. Some attention has been paid to Foscarini's role as a Copernican spokesman by historians interested either in chronicling the spread of Coper- nicanism in Europe or in detailing the events leading up to the condemnation Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, XXI, 2 (1997) /59 60 / Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme of 1616, which itself set the stage for Galileo's personal condemnation of 1633. -
Preprint N°494
2019 Preprint N°494 The Reception of Cosmography in Vienna: Georg von Peuerbach, Johannes Regiomontanus, and Sebastian Binderlius Thomas Horst Published in the context of the project “The Sphere—Knowledge System Evolution and the Shared Scientific Identity of Europe” https://sphaera.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de The Reception of Cosmography in Vienna: Georg von Peuerbach, Johannes Regiomontanus, and Sebastian Binderlius1 Abstract In this paper, the importance of the cosmographical activities of the Vienna astronomical “school” for the reception of the Tractatus de Sphaera is analyzed. First, the biographies of two main representatives of the Vienna mathematical/astronomical circle are presented: the Austrian astronomers, mathematicians, and instrument makers Georg von Peuerbach (1423– 1461) and his student Johannes Müller von Königsberg (Regiomontanus, 1436–1476). Their studies influenced the cosmographical teaching at the University of Vienna enormously for the next century and are relevant to understanding what followed; therefore, the prosopo- graphical introductions of these Vienna scholars have been included here, even if neither can be considered a real author of the Sphaera. Moreover, taking the examples of an impressive sixteenth-century miscellany (Austrian Na- tional Library, Cod. ser. nov. 4265, including the recently rediscovered cosmography by Sebastian Binderlius, compiled around 1518), the diversity of different cosmographical studies in the capital of the Habsburg Empire at the turning point between the Middle Ages and the early modern period is demonstrated. Handwritten comments in the Vienna edition of De sphaera (1518) also show how big the influence of Sacrobosco’s work remained as a didactical tool at the universities in the first decades of the sixteenth century—and how cosmographical knowledge was transformed and structured in early modern Europe by the editors and readers of the Sphaera. -
The Copernican System
The Copernican system Jan P. Hogendijk Dept of Mathematics, Utrecht University 8 june 2011 1 Prelude: the 15th century Copernicus: biography Copernicus’ new system: Main Points Copernicus’ new system: Dirty Details The reception of the new system 2 Renaissance Invention of Printing by Johannes Gutenberg (Mainz), ca. 1450: typesetting with movable type, printing press, paper. 3 Most important astronomer of the 15th century Johannes Muller¨ of K¨onigsberg (Bavaria), or Regiomontanus (1436-1476) 4 Biography of Regiomontanus (1436-1476) 1448: Entered University of Leipzig. 1460: Met cardinal Bessarion (from Trebizond), travelled with him to Italy. 1463: completed Epitome of the Almagest (of Ptolemy) [printed 1492]. ca. 1461: made observations of eclipses, etc. which diverged from the predictions by e.g. the Alfonsine tables. 5 Quotation from Regiomontanus (1464) “I cannot [but] wonder at the indolence of common astronomers of our age, who, just as credulous women, receive as something divine and immutable whatever they come upon in books, either of tables of their instructions, for they believe in writers and make no effort to find the truth.” Regiomontanus wanted to restore and “update” Ptolemaic astronomy in order to predict astronomical phenomena accurately. 1471: he founded printing press in Nurnberg,¨ producing mathematical and astronomical works with great accuracy. 6 Product of Regiomontanus’ Press (1472) Novae Theoricae Planetarum, Georg von Peuerbach (1423-1461) 7 Example of Regiomontanus’ own predictions solar and lunar eclipses, 1489, 1490 8 Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543): biography 1473 Torun (Poland) - 1543 Frauenburg = Frombork (now in Poland, near coast and Russian border) Studied at the University of Krakow. Worked in service of the Catholic Church until his death.