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Tag Archives: Copernicus

The Sun, The Moon, The Stars – One Thousand Years of Cosmological Gazing!

18 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bingham in Events

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1661, Amsterdam, Andreas Cellarius, astronomy, Copernicus, Eclipse, Einstein, Galileo, Harmonia Macrocosmica, Jansson, Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe

The sun, the moon, the stars!

The Rare Books Department invites you to a hands-on display of more than one thousand years of cosmological gazing. From Ptolemy to Galileo to Einstein, hold the books that brought the heavens down to earth.

Rare Books Classroom

J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4

Monday, August 21

10 am to 1 pm

Image featured on poster from:

Harmonia Macrocosmica
Andreas Cellarius
Amsterdam: Jansson, 1661
Second edition
QB41 C39

See you at the eclipse!

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Book of the Week — Petri Gassendi Institutio Astronomica…

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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astronomy, Copernicus, crystalline, England, English, Galileo, Jacobi Flesher, Johannes Kepler, Jupiter, light, moon, moons, mountains, Pierre Gassendi, sphere, stars, telescope, textbook, Tycho Brahe, university, valleys, woodcuts

qb41-g2-1653-orbits

“…senseless atoms, playing and toying up and down, without any care or thought, and from eternity trying all manner of tricks, conclusions and experiments, were at length (they know not how) taught, and by the necessity of things themselves, as it were, driven…so that though their motions were at first all casual and fortuitous, yet in length of time they became orderly and artificial, and governed by a certain law, they contracting as it were upon themselves, by long practice and experience, a kind of habit of moving regularly; or else being, by the mere necessity of things, at length forced so to move, as they should have done, had art and wisdom directed them.”

PETRI GASSENDI INSTITUTIO ASTRONOMICA, JUXTA…
Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), etc.
Londini, typis Jacobi Flesher, 1653
QB41 G2 1653

qb41-g2-1653-title

French polymath Pierre Gassendi worked on atomic theory, physics, and the philosophical implications of the work of Greek philosopher Epicurus (ca. 330 BCE), which he used as support for his opposition to an Aristotelean world view. Gassendi was one of the first to coin the term “molecule,” defined as two or more atoms joined together. Much of his published work was written to counter the philosophical views of Rene Descartes.

Using telescope lenses provided to him by Galileo Galilei, Gassendi made numerous astronomical observations that helped establish the validity of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. In 1631, he observed Mercury transit in front of the sun, thus providing strong evidence for the Copernican model. Gassendi denounced astrology as having no empirical support.

This is the first edition of this collection and the first publication in England of all three works contained within.

Institutio astronomica was first published in 1647. It was divided into three sections: the first discussed the “theory of the spheres,” the second described astronomical theory, and the third discussed the conflicting ideas of Tycho Brahe and Copernicus. The work was used as a textbook, particularly in English universities, for years. That the second edition, here, includes Galileo’s Sidereus nuncius and Johannes Kepler’s Dioptrice makes the publication historically significant.

Sidereus nuncius (first published in 1610 – this is the third edition, the first English edition of any of Galileo’s works) announced Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s moons. Sidereus nuncius was Galileo’s publication of his first observations through a telescope he developed in 1609. Galileo observed the moon as a spherical, solid body complete with mountains and valleys, contradicting the tradition of the moon as a crystalline sphere. He observed thousands of stars hidden from the naked eye. He discovered four moons surrounding Jupiter, in different positions at different times. With these observations Galileo accepted the Copernican theory.

qb41-g2-1653-shadowsurface

qb41-g2-1653-constellation

Dioptrice (first published in 1611 – this is the second edition) explained the manufacture and workings of the telescope, a necessary component in the acceptance of what the telescope revealed. Kepler discussed the laws governing the passage of light through lenses.

Contains four woodcut plates and woodcut diagrams throughout the text. Each work has its own title-page. The main title-page is printed in red and black. University of Utah copy binding contemporary calf, ruled in blind.

qb41-g2-1653-globe

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Book of the Week — Theatro del mundo y de el tiempo…

14 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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astronomical, atlas, calculations, cartographers, celestial, constellations, Copernicus, Dante, earth, eclipses, equinoxes, geographic, Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, Granada, hell, maps, moon, mythologic, planets, Ptolemaic, Sebastian Munoz, star, sun, Venice, vovelles

QB41-G1818-pg38 QB41-G1818-pg54QB41-G1818-pg64 QB41-G1818-pg115

THEATRO DEL MUNDO Y DE EL TIEMP…
Giovanni Paolo Gallucci
Impresso en Granada en las casas de autor, por su industria, y a su costa por Sebastian Munoz, impressor de libros ano 1607

First published in Venice in 1588 as Theatrum mundi, et temporis, this book presents the forty-eight maps of the Ptolemaic constellations and depicts them as mythologic figures. The star positions are taken from Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbum coelestium. Giovanni Paolo Gallucci’s Theatrum is considered the first modern celestial atlas because in its maps he used a coordinate system and a trapezoidal system of projection common among geographic cartographers of the time, allowing an exact determination of the star positions. The lively constellation figures overlay very accurate maps of the stars. Gallucci’s text is an encyclopedia of astronomical knowledge. He describes the Ptolemaic theories of the movement of the planets, the sun, the moon, and eclipses. Tables illustrate the earth, a Dantesque hell, and a forecast of the equinoxes from 1588 to 1800. This edition contains several complex vovelles to aid in calculations.

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Book of the Week – Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

30 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by scott beadles in Book of the Week

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Age of Reason, Albert Einstein, alchemy, Alexander Pope, Aristotle, astronomy, calculus, Copernicus, Edmund Halley, Enlightenment, Galielo, gravity, history of science, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, laws of motion, Leibniz, London, mathematics, Principia, telescope, The University of Utah, theory of relativity, William Wordsworth

QA803-A2-1687-titleQA803-A2-1687-pg1QA803-A2-1687-pg283

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
London, J. Streater, 1687
First edition
QA803 A2 1687

Although Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler had shown the way by describing the phenomena they observed, Isaac Newton explained the underlying universal laws of those phenomena. Newton’s theories overthrew the subjective interpretations of nature that had dominated science and natural philosophy since the time of Aristotle and ushered in the Age of Reason. By age forty-three, Newton had invented calculus, broken white light into its component colors, and built a telescope whose design is still used today. When he was forty-seven he published the book that profoundly changed the way we see the world and established his brilliance as an astronomer and mathematician. It is likely that no more than three hundred copies of the first edition were printed.

Principia gave us the three laws of motion, defined gravity, and provided the precise mathematical equations by which it could be measured. Edmund Halley was instrumental in getting Principia into print. Halley wheedled, flattered and bullied Newton, a recluse, into preparing his manuscript. Halley paid the cost of printing it out of his own pocket. Leibniz admired Newton’s math but was appalled by his fascination with alchemy. Of the birth of the Age of Reason, Alexander Pope wrote, “Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night;/God said ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.” William Wordsworth wrote of Newton, “for ever Voyaging thro’ strange seas of Thought, alone.” Albert Einstein said that Newton “determined the course of western thought, research, and practice like no one else before or since.”

In the twenty-first century, Principia is still considered one of the greatest single contributions in the history of science.

University of Utah copy: Second and third books printed by different printers, evidenced by different type in the headings and a break in paging between the two books. Diagram on p. 22

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Book of the Week – Harmonia Macrocosmica

07 Monday Oct 2013

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Andreas Cellarius, astronomers, astronomy, atlas, burins, cartography, cherubs, compasses, Copernicus, Dutch, engraving, Europe, Galileo, Gerald Valk, gravers, illustrations, Jan Jansson, Pieter Schenck, Pope Paul V, printing press, Ptolemy, transits, Tycho Brahe

Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1661
Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1661
Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1661

Harmonia Macrocosmica
Andreas Cellarius
Amsterdam: Jansson, 1661
Second edition
QB41 C39

The Celestial Atlas of Harmony was published in varying formats in 1660, 1661, 1666, and 1708.  Very few copies of the first edition of 1660 survive.  (One known copy is held by the British Museum). The Harmonia Macrocosmica, a summary of pre-Newtonian astronomy, compares the various cosmological theories up to and of that time, including those of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and Copernicus.

The geocentric theories of Ptolemy, suggesting that the earth is the center of the universe, are contrasted with those of Copernicus, who put the sun at the center of our solar system. Tycho Brahe’s theory attempted to unify the two. Brahe’s version shows the sun revolving around the earth and the rest of the planets revolving around the sun.

The book also has sections on the Earth’s climate zones, the sizes of the sun, moon, and planets, and the constellations of the zodiac. It is this broad overview of astronomical thought that kept the book from being banned under strictures put in place by Pope Paul V in 1616. These same strictures put Galileo under house arrest for the rest of his life after the printing of his Dialogo (1632), which was based on Copernican theory.

Andreas Cellarius was the rector of a college in the northern Netherlands. The printer, Jan Jansson, was one of the preeminent publishers of his time. Both art and science were applied to this production, with discoveries heralded by imaginative images as well as observed fact. Cheerful cherubs, floating over head earnest astronomers hold transits and compasses. The first edition was extremely popular, prompting the second edition.

The second edition of the atlas contains twenty-nine lavishly designed and hand-colored engraved plates, some of the finest examples of seventeenth-century Dutch cartography in existence. The technique of engraving began in ancient times as a way to decorate objects, particularly of metal. After the development of the printing press in Europe in 1450, engraving became a way to create high quality illustrations which retained precise detail, even after multiple impressions. Specialized tools, known as “burins” and “gravers” of various sizes and shapes were used to cut away the surface of a metal plate. The 1708 reissue bears the engraved names of Gerald Valk and Pieter Schenck on each plate, although not one line had been changed.

View more images at the J. Willard Marriott Library Digital Library

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Book of the Week – Dialogo di Galileo Galilei

12 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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astronomy, Copernicus, dialogo, Galileo, heliocentric, Index, Inquisition, Italian, Landini, Latin, mathematics, medicine, Padua, philosophy, Pisa, Ptolemaic, Roman Catholic Church, solar system, telescope, vernacular

Dialogo di Galileo Galilei, 1632, Frontispiece
Dialogo di Galileo Galilei, 1632, Title Page
Dialogo di Galileo Galilei, 1632

Dialogo Di Galileo Galilei Linceo Matematico Sopraordinario Dello Stvdio de Pisa
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Fiorenza: Per Gio Batista Landini, 1632
First edition

Born in Pisa in 1564, Galileo studied medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. In 1592 he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics in Padua. His early research was mainly on motion, particularly of falling bodies, but he became interested in astronomy. He developed a new type of telescope.

Much of Galileo’s early work proved the theories of Copernicus, of which the Roman Catholic Church disapproved, placing an injunction not to hold or defend Copernican doctrine. Galileo ignored the injunction with the publication of Dialogo.

Galileo’s Dialogo is a scientific and philosophical affirmation of the Copernican heliocentric theory over the earth-centered Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. Written in a literary style, Galileo deliberately chose to write this work in vernacular Italian rather than scholarly Latin in order to reach a mass audience. The topic made Galileo a threat to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

It was this book that brought Galileo before the Inquisition in 1633, where he was forced to recant his views. He was put under permanent house arrest. Dialogo was placed on the Index of prohibited book where it remained until 1835. Publication took place between June 1631 and February 1632.  The first printing numbered 1000 copies of 500 pages. This printing sold out before the end of September when it was banned by the Pope. Illustrated. University of Utah copy edges untrimmed.

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Book of the Week – Novum Organum

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

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Aristotle, Billium, Copernicus, deductive logic, empirical methodology, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, London, Middle Ages, Pillars of Hercules, science, Straits of Gibraltar, Tycho Brahe, Western Europe, William Gilbert

Novum Organum, 1620

Novum Organum, 1620

Francisci de Verulamio, Summi Angliae Cancellarii. Instauratio Magna. Multi Pertransibunt et Augebitur Scientia
Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)
London: Billium, 1620
First edition
B1165 1620

The foundations of modern science were set out by Francis Bacon in this book. Bacon advanced a new method of reasoning. Bacon argued convincingly that deductive logic, taught by Aristotle and practiced in Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages, would not work for science. Bacon wrote that experimentation was necessary to determine truth. He criticized existing methods of scientific interpretation as inadequate and provided a system based upon empirical methodology, accurate observations, and the accumulation of reliable data. The engraved image on the title page was prophetic. In 1620, the course of philosophy, with Bacon as pilot, was substantially altered. Sailing through the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar), the limits of the Old World, Bacon’s ship sets out into new and uncharted seas, leaving behind a legacy of superstition and credulity. This voyage, as daring and influential as any undertaken by Renaissance explorers, ushered in a new era.  Although the discoveries of Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, and William Gilbert had done much to destroy the pervasive influence of Aristotle, it was this work that established a new philosophical structure in Western Europe.

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