Thomas Pring
Mr. Percival
D.E. Astronomy, 2
12 Oct 2012
Georg
Von Peurbach
Georg Von Peurbach was born on May 30th 1423,
and died on April 8th 1461. Unfortunately, not much is known about
his life before he entered the University of Vienna. There, he received the degree
of master of philosophy and the free arts around the year 1440. He also received
Bachelor of the Arts in 1448, and later his Master of Arts in 1453. He spent
much of his life in Vienna, and was both born and died there. He was offered
many professorships while he traveled northern Italy, giving lectures on
astronomy, but turned them all down and returned to Vienna.
He was an Austrian astronomer and mathematician, and is
considered to be a founder of observational and mathematical astronomy in the
West. He was a believer in a Helio-Centric solar system, as shown by his best
known work, Theoricae Novae Planetarum.
This work influenced famous astronomers in the future such as Nicolaus
Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Johannes Kepler. His work combined the “homocentric
spheres” believed by philosophers such as Aristotle to be the organization and
orbital explanations of the solar system, with Ptolemy’s epicycle trains
belief.
Georg worked with his student and colleague Johannes
Muler von Konigsberg (also known by his pseudonym Regiomontanus), for years on
countless projects. They made observations on what we call Halley’s Comet in
1456, but are still not acclaimed as the first to discover it. They also were
witness to a lunar eclipse on September 3rd 1457. While he made
observations on astronomical objects and events, he also is credited as the
inventor of many scientific instruments. Some of these instruments include the
regula, the geometrical square.
He brought the Hindu-Arabic numeral system into play with
astronomy, by having his pupil create a shortened version of Ptolemy’s Almagest, and replaced all of the “Chords”
with sines. He calculated the sines for every minute of arc for a radius of
600,000 units, putting them all into a table. This was the first known
transition for scientists from the duodecimal, to the decimal system.
Georg did not have many tools or sensitive instruments at
his disposal, so many of his observations were made with simple ones that were
common in his time period. He used things such as a plumb-line to measure the
angles of elevation of the stars. This most likely prompted him to design and
invent new instruments that would help his studies.
Before his death, he was invited into Rome to study
Ptolemy’s works in their original Greek form, instead of having to continue
reading the Latin Translation he had access to. This translation would be
incorrect in many ways, as the translation process would be skewed without
direct translations between words in the two languages. Having taken up the
offer, he set off to Rome, with the condition that his pupil be brought along.
While he was studying however, he died, leaving Regiomontanus to complete his
studies on his own.
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