Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221109257
Andrea L. Winkler
In a previous issue of this journal (53/1), M. Escolano-Poveda published four elaborate demotic-hieratic horoscopes from Athribis. Three of the texts are new (O.Athribis 17-36-5/1741), and the fourth is reedited (ANAsh.Mus.D.O. 633). The present paper engages with two features of these texts. The first concerns the synchronization of the lunar and civil calendars. The editor of the horoscopes claims that the year count as it appears in the Greek P.Ryl. IV 589 is the basis for the correlation between the two calendars in these texts, but this paper shows that the Athribis horoscopes follow the cycle according to the scheme found in P.Carlsberg 9. The second issue is the nature of eight entities listed after the four cardinal points. Escolano-Poveda interprets them as an idiosyncratic system of arranging the places (in Greek, typically τόποι) in the Dodecatropos. Several of the readings for the names of these eight entities, however, must be revised, which leads in turn to a reconsideration of the identification as places. They are better understood as astrological lots (in Greek, typically κλῆροι), and the system partially overlaps with the one known from the canonical Hellenistic astrologers.
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Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221116433
Richard L. Kremer, James Evans
We regret to inform our readers of the passing of our friend and colleague, Noel M. Swerdlow, who was long a member of the JHA Advisory Board and who was one of the most accomplished historians of astronomy of his generation. Noel was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, attended UCLA, then went on to Yale for graduate work. Before settling on a professional direction, Noel had hesitated between music and history of science. Noel’s doctoral dissertation at Yale, directed by Bernard Goldstein, was titled Ptolemy’s Theory of the Distances and Sizes of the Planets: A Study of the Scientific Foundations of Medieval Cosmology (1968). Although this was never published in its entirety, parts of it later appeared in articles; moreover, the dissertation is well known and has been highly influential among historians of astronomy. In the acknowledgments, Noel of course thanks Goldstein, who worked closely with him through the entire project, but also Asger Aeboe, Derek J. De Solla Price (who suggested the topic in the first place), as well as Gerald Toomer—a notable set of mentors. Noel joined the History Department of the University of Chicago in 1968, but, in a rather unusual arrangement, moved to the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1982. He was an active member of his new department, attending the weekly astrophysics colloquium, for example. He had particularly warm relations with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, whom he thanked “for recognizing and encouraging historical work as a serious part of the study of astronomy and astrophysics.”1 After his 2010 retirement at Chicago, Noel and his wife Nadia relocated to southern California, where Noel was a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. Noel was an extraordinarily helpful colleague, generous with his time and energy, but he was famous for having little patience for nonsense. JE recalls a meeting in which Noel had the misfortune to be seated at a dinner table directly below the dais, from which the after-dinner speaker held forth with a highly conjectural story about the origin of the constellations. Noel could be seen writhing in agony at each new unsupported guess. In his dissertation on Ptolemaic planetary distances, Swerdlow wrote:
我们遗憾地通知我们的读者，我们的朋友和同事诺埃尔·m·斯维尔德罗去世了，他长期担任JHA顾问委员会的成员，是他那一代最有成就的天文学历史学家之一。诺埃尔在洛杉矶地区出生和长大，就读于加州大学洛杉矶分校，然后去耶鲁大学读研究生。在确定专业方向之前，诺埃尔在音乐和科学史之间犹豫不决。诺埃尔在耶鲁大学的博士论文由伯纳德·戈尔茨坦指导，题目是《托勒密关于行星距离和大小的理论:中世纪宇宙学科学基础的研究》(1968)。虽然这篇文章从未全文发表，但其中的部分内容后来出现在文章中;此外，这篇论文在天文学史家中很有名，影响很大。在致谢中，Noel当然要感谢Goldstein，他在整个项目中与他密切合作，还有Asger Aeboe, Derek J. De Solla Price(他首先提出了这个主题)，以及Gerald toomer——一组著名的导师。诺埃尔于1968年加入芝加哥大学历史系，但在1982年，在一个相当不寻常的安排下，他转到了天文和天体物理系。他是新部门的活跃成员，比如参加每周的天体物理学研讨会。他与Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar的关系特别友好，他感谢他“承认并鼓励历史研究是天文学和天体物理学研究的一个严肃部分”。2010年从芝加哥退休后，诺埃尔和妻子纳迪亚搬到了南加州，在那里诺埃尔是加州理工学院的客座教授。诺埃尔是一位非常乐于助人的同事，他对时间和精力都很慷慨，但他对废话的耐心却是出了名的。《JE》回忆起在一次会议上，诺埃尔不幸坐在台子正下方的餐桌旁，饭后的演讲者滔滔不绝地讲述了一个关于星座起源的高度推测性的故事。可以看到诺埃尔在每一个没有根据的猜测中痛苦地扭动。斯维尔德洛在他关于托勒密行星距离的论文中写道:
{"title":"Noel M. Swerdlow, 1941–2021","authors":"Richard L. Kremer, James Evans","doi":"10.1177/00218286221116433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221116433","url":null,"abstract":"We regret to inform our readers of the passing of our friend and colleague, Noel M. Swerdlow, who was long a member of the JHA Advisory Board and who was one of the most accomplished historians of astronomy of his generation. Noel was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, attended UCLA, then went on to Yale for graduate work. Before settling on a professional direction, Noel had hesitated between music and history of science. Noel’s doctoral dissertation at Yale, directed by Bernard Goldstein, was titled Ptolemy’s Theory of the Distances and Sizes of the Planets: A Study of the Scientific Foundations of Medieval Cosmology (1968). Although this was never published in its entirety, parts of it later appeared in articles; moreover, the dissertation is well known and has been highly influential among historians of astronomy. In the acknowledgments, Noel of course thanks Goldstein, who worked closely with him through the entire project, but also Asger Aeboe, Derek J. De Solla Price (who suggested the topic in the first place), as well as Gerald Toomer—a notable set of mentors. Noel joined the History Department of the University of Chicago in 1968, but, in a rather unusual arrangement, moved to the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1982. He was an active member of his new department, attending the weekly astrophysics colloquium, for example. He had particularly warm relations with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, whom he thanked “for recognizing and encouraging historical work as a serious part of the study of astronomy and astrophysics.”1 After his 2010 retirement at Chicago, Noel and his wife Nadia relocated to southern California, where Noel was a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. Noel was an extraordinarily helpful colleague, generous with his time and energy, but he was famous for having little patience for nonsense. JE recalls a meeting in which Noel had the misfortune to be seated at a dinner table directly below the dais, from which the after-dinner speaker held forth with a highly conjectural story about the origin of the constellations. Noel could be seen writhing in agony at each new unsupported guess. In his dissertation on Ptolemaic planetary distances, Swerdlow wrote:","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"364 - 368"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44797095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221105652
Nicolas Weill-Parot
science, is appreciated in both accounts and helps to fully show Rubin’s lasting impact. Although she was forced to overcome obstacles placed in her way throughout her life and career, she was determined to reduce those obstacles for the women who came after her, arguing for equal pay across all sectors and equal representation of women on influential astronomical committees. One chapter in the Mitton book is devoted to this part of Rubin’s life and Yeager emphasizes Rubin’s role as mentor by presenting many personal stories, including her own. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, once fully operational in Chile, will help astronomers continue Rubin’s work. Rubin is the first woman to have a large, national observatory named for her, a monument to her legacy. Both biographies will broaden readers’ understanding of Vera Rubin’s legacy by providing a more complete look at her professional and personal lives and the obstacles and successes she encountered along the way.
{"title":"Medieval Structures of Astrology","authors":"Nicolas Weill-Parot","doi":"10.1177/00218286221105652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221105652","url":null,"abstract":"science, is appreciated in both accounts and helps to fully show Rubin’s lasting impact. Although she was forced to overcome obstacles placed in her way throughout her life and career, she was determined to reduce those obstacles for the women who came after her, arguing for equal pay across all sectors and equal representation of women on influential astronomical committees. One chapter in the Mitton book is devoted to this part of Rubin’s life and Yeager emphasizes Rubin’s role as mentor by presenting many personal stories, including her own. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, once fully operational in Chile, will help astronomers continue Rubin’s work. Rubin is the first woman to have a large, national observatory named for her, a monument to her legacy. Both biographies will broaden readers’ understanding of Vera Rubin’s legacy by providing a more complete look at her professional and personal lives and the obstacles and successes she encountered along the way.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"372 - 376"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43441945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221110919
M. Monroe
While the clay used to write cuneiform tablets is well suited to impressing the wedges of cuneiform signs it is not an ideal medium for the curved lines and detailed marks needed to create illustrative diagrams of the heavens well known in neighboring cultures. Yet, in a selection of examples, cuneiform scholars of astronomy and astrology used clay to sketch out complex diagrams of celestial arrangements and schematic representations of astrological concepts. This article will survey the corpus of astronomical and astrological diagrams preserved from cuneiform sources and summarize key observations about the relation of diagrams to texts and tablets and the representation of theoretical knowledge.
{"title":"Astronomical and astrological diagrams from cuneiform sources","authors":"M. Monroe","doi":"10.1177/00218286221110919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221110919","url":null,"abstract":"While the clay used to write cuneiform tablets is well suited to impressing the wedges of cuneiform signs it is not an ideal medium for the curved lines and detailed marks needed to create illustrative diagrams of the heavens well known in neighboring cultures. Yet, in a selection of examples, cuneiform scholars of astronomy and astrology used clay to sketch out complex diagrams of celestial arrangements and schematic representations of astrological concepts. This article will survey the corpus of astronomical and astrological diagrams preserved from cuneiform sources and summarize key observations about the relation of diagrams to texts and tablets and the representation of theoretical knowledge.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"11 1","pages":"338 - 361"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64912614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221099993
Christián C. Carman, G. Recio
The Alfonsine and Prutenic tables of planetary latitudes, with which Tycho Brahe began his work, had several deficiencies, ultimately inherited from Ptolemy’s simplifications when he constructed tables for his extremely complicated models. In this paper, we analyze a manuscript that shows Brahe’s attempts at removing these deficiencies by trying several different options, some of which were, to say the least, audacious. We also offer an analysis of the manuscript that helps to date the creation of the non-bisected divided eccentricity model that underlies some of these attempts, and which would prove to be influential in the general history of modern astronomy.
{"title":"Tycho Brahe’s Appendix ad Observationes anni 1593 and the date of Brahe’s theory of Mars, the prototype for Kepler’s vicarious hypothesis","authors":"Christián C. Carman, G. Recio","doi":"10.1177/00218286221099993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221099993","url":null,"abstract":"The Alfonsine and Prutenic tables of planetary latitudes, with which Tycho Brahe began his work, had several deficiencies, ultimately inherited from Ptolemy’s simplifications when he constructed tables for his extremely complicated models. In this paper, we analyze a manuscript that shows Brahe’s attempts at removing these deficiencies by trying several different options, some of which were, to say the least, audacious. We also offer an analysis of the manuscript that helps to date the creation of the non-bisected divided eccentricity model that underlies some of these attempts, and which would prove to be influential in the general history of modern astronomy.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"239 - 265"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47585699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221107706
L. Morrison, F. Stephenson, C. Hohenkerk
An apology for a missed reference.
为遗漏的参考而道歉。
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Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221101604
J. Rozelot, J. Singh
This paper is dedicated to the memory of Jean Rösch, a great figure in astronomy in the years 1947–1981 who designed, among several innovative devices, a 15-cm spectro-coronagraph. This instrument was installed at Pic du Midi observatory (south-west France), was in use during the mid-60s, fully dedicated to the observation from the ground of the coronal highly ionized iron lines, which was a true challenge at that time. This program is here reconsidered in the context of the time, at Pic du Midi observatory, which has been the cradle of routine visual coronal observations initiated by Bernard Lyot. We take advantage of this review to underline that the goals and objectives of this ground-based coronal program are taken over since 2008, by an Indian team from Bangalore (Indian Institute of Astrophysics), through a space mission (ADITYA-L1 or Sun in Sanskrit), showing a-posteriori the very innovative aspects developed with the help of this 15-cm spectro-coronagraph and thanks to the skills of J. Rösch’s collaborators.
这篇论文是为了纪念1947年至1981年天文学界的伟大人物Jean Rösch，他在几个创新设备中设计了一个15厘米的光谱日冕仪。该仪器安装在Pic du Midi天文台（法国西南部），在60年代中期投入使用，完全致力于从地面观测日冕高度电离的铁线，这在当时是一个真正的挑战。这一计划在当时的背景下被重新考虑，在米迪图片天文台，该天文台一直是伯纳德·莱昂特发起的常规视觉日冕观测的摇篮。我们利用这篇综述强调，自2008年以来，班加罗尔（印度天体物理研究所）的一个印度团队通过一项太空任务（ADITYA-L1或梵文中的太阳）接管了这一地面日冕计划的目标和目的，展示了在这台15厘米的光谱冠状图的帮助下，以及由于J.Rösch合作者的技能而开发的非常创新的方面。
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Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221110573
P. Barker
Michela Malpangotto’s beautifully produced book provides a new translation and a contextual history for the most important astronomy book of the 16th century, if we judge from the viewpoint of the 16th century. In 1454 Georg Peurbach delivered a series of lectures on mathematical models for planetary motion at the university of Vienna. Although to a large extent he followed the conventional topics of the established theorica tradition, he began the discussion of each planet with a model of three-dimensional, geocentric orbs that would create its motion. The half-page illustrations of each model became icons of astronomy after they were published in book form by Regiomontanus in 1473. Over the next century, this book—the New Theoricae of the Planets—displaced the older Theoricae planetarum all over Europe and became the main teaching text for the advanced part of the university astronomy course. When Copernicus presented De revolutionibus, or Kepler and Galileo defended heliocentrism, Peurbach’s was the standard astronomy text for most students. Malpangotto’s first four sections are a book-within-a-book that consists of some 246 pages and covers the life and work of Peurbach, the context and content of the Theoricae novae, the first manuscript versions, and then a very detailed narrative of the printed editions from 1473 to 1653. This is followed by the translation itself. Malpangotto offers us the first critical edition of Peurbach’s important text, based primarily on Regiomontanus’ printed edition. Her translation gives French and Latin on facing pages. Although the main headings have been retained, the paragraph breaks from the first edition have been replaced by a numbering system based on change of topic, providing a handy reference system. Illustrations in the original text have been reproduced, in color, with a much more detailed modern redrawing of the figures at the corresponding position in the translation. The translation is followed by appendices reproducing all the figures from three important manuscripts, the first by Regiomontanus, next the spectacularly colored version dedicated to Archbishop JánosVitez, and probably used by Brudzewo, and the last dedicated to Cardinal Bessarion. Immediately following (pp. 338–45) is a detailed table of contents for the entire Theoricae novae based on Malpangotto’s numbering system. This gives a synopsis of the entire work and allows the rapid location of a particular topic. Next Malpangotto offers a technical commentary based on the numbering system she has introduced. Here she makes good use of the later editions, especially the images from Schreckenfuchs (1556), which show physical models for individual theoricae, and the 1110573 JHA0010.1177/00218286221110573Journal for the History of AstronomyBook Reviews book-review2022
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Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221107618
Samantha M. Thompson
paper instrument for the motion of the Moon from Reinhold (1542). The book concludes with exhaustive lists of known manuscripts, known printed editions, and commentaries. There is a bibliography of primary and secondary sources, an index of names, and a usefully detailed table of contents. In this book Malpangotto has little to say about the equant, the announced motivation for Copernicus’s reform of astronomy. But elsewhere she has traced the problem from Peurbach to Copernicus through the commentary of Brudzewo (see esp. Archive for the History of Exact Science, 70 (2016): 36–411 and cf. Barker, this journal, 70 (2013): 125–48). Beyond context, then, Peurbach’s book and its commentaries contributed to astronomy in ways that have not yet been sufficiently studied or appreciated. Malpangotto argues vigorously that theorica orbs were accepted as real physical objects. This has consequences for both the content and the methods of astronomy. First we need to acknowledge that, for most astronomers from Peurbach through the time of Copernicus and until the general abandonment of celestial orbs following Tycho Brahe, the largest physical objects in the universe were the material orbs described in the Theoricae novae. Second, at the level of method, we need to recognize that, from at least the time of Peurbach, the principle that astronomical theories ought to correspond to the real world was adopted by astronomers in the Christian West (both ideas were already universally accepted in the Islamic East). These two changes are quite sufficient to support Malpangotto’s claim that the appearance of Peurbach’s book created a revolution in 15th-century astronomy that prepared the way for Copernicus’s 16th-century revolution.
{"title":"Two biographies of Vera Rubin","authors":"Samantha M. Thompson","doi":"10.1177/00218286221107618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221107618","url":null,"abstract":"paper instrument for the motion of the Moon from Reinhold (1542). The book concludes with exhaustive lists of known manuscripts, known printed editions, and commentaries. There is a bibliography of primary and secondary sources, an index of names, and a usefully detailed table of contents. In this book Malpangotto has little to say about the equant, the announced motivation for Copernicus’s reform of astronomy. But elsewhere she has traced the problem from Peurbach to Copernicus through the commentary of Brudzewo (see esp. Archive for the History of Exact Science, 70 (2016): 36–411 and cf. Barker, this journal, 70 (2013): 125–48). Beyond context, then, Peurbach’s book and its commentaries contributed to astronomy in ways that have not yet been sufficiently studied or appreciated. Malpangotto argues vigorously that theorica orbs were accepted as real physical objects. This has consequences for both the content and the methods of astronomy. First we need to acknowledge that, for most astronomers from Peurbach through the time of Copernicus and until the general abandonment of celestial orbs following Tycho Brahe, the largest physical objects in the universe were the material orbs described in the Theoricae novae. Second, at the level of method, we need to recognize that, from at least the time of Peurbach, the principle that astronomical theories ought to correspond to the real world was adopted by astronomers in the Christian West (both ideas were already universally accepted in the Islamic East). These two changes are quite sufficient to support Malpangotto’s claim that the appearance of Peurbach’s book created a revolution in 15th-century astronomy that prepared the way for Copernicus’s 16th-century revolution.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"370 - 372"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44608002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-01DOI: 10.1177/00218286221105653
J. Włodarczyk
The torquetum was a complex astronomical instrument whose construction is known thanks to certain descriptions, iconography and few extant artefacts. It was used in pre-telescopic astronomy from at least the 13th century. However, the usefulness of the torquetum as an observing instrument remains unknown. It is my intention to introduce a preliminary analysis of the merits and limitations of the torquetum in determining the coordinates of celestial bodies. For this purpose I shall refer to (1) written sources that contain descriptions of the construction of the instrument and its use; (2) the results of an examination of the torquetum constructed by Hans Dorn of Vienna (c.1487) and conserved in the Jagiellonian University Museum in Cracow; (3) elements of a theory of the instrument, which allow us to trace down instrumental errors, both systematic and accidental; (4) the only substantial and extant set of observations made with the torquetum, that is, a catalogue of 58 stars, compiled in Kassel in the years 1560–63.
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