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Tag Archives: telescope

Book of the Week — Petri Gassendi Institutio Astronomica…

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

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 – 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 – Dialogo di Galileo Galilei

12 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Tags

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.

alluNeedSingleLine

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Book of the Week – Sphaera Mundi

25 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Tags

cosmography, Galileo, Guiseppe Bianchani, Jesuit, moon, Society of Jesus, telescope, thermometer, Tycho Brahe, woodcuts

Guiseppe Bianchani, Sphaera Mundi,1620
Guiseppe Bianchani, Sphaera Mundi,1620
Guiseppe Bianchani, Sphaera Mundi,1620


Sphaera Mundi
Guiseppe Bianchani (1566 – 1624)
Bononiae: Typis S. Bonomij, sumptibus Hieronymis Tamburini, 1620
First edition
GA7 B57

One of the most immediate consequences of the telescopic observations of Galileo in 1609-10 was the discussion it generated among the mathematicians and astronomers of the Society of Jesus. They reproduced Galileo’s observations and debated the cosmological order of the universe taking into consideration the new data. The debate culminated in the adoption of Tycho Brahe’s system and was made official with the publication of Giuseppe Bianchani’s Sphaera Mundi.

The Jesuit Bianchani fully accepted Brahe’s amendation of the Copernican cosmography which acknowledged the heliocentricity of the planetary system, while preserving the geocentricity of the universe. Bianchani wrote his treatise in 1615, but it was not published until 1620, after the Decree of the Congregation of the Index in 1616. Written at the request of his students, Bianchani respectfully cites Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler repeatedly. He discusses the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, sunspots, and the new stars of 1572, 1600, and 1604, astronomical phenomena not observed before the development of the telescope.

Bianchani also presents his own theory of the earth’s tendency toward roundness, wherein natural forces operate to flatten mountains and fill valleys so that the surface would be completely covered by the ocean, as it was in the early formation of the earth. Bianchani writes that God created the earth on the third day as a smooth sphere. God then created the depths of the sea and formed the mountains.

One of the many woodcuts in the text is an illustration of the moon, with very inaccurately drawn craters. Another is the first illustration of a thermometer.

 

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