Journal for the History of Astronomy最新文献

{"title":"On the demotic-hieratic horoscopes from Athribis","authors":"Andrea L. Winkler","doi":"10.1177/00218286221109257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221109257","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"328 - 377"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41328168","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}

{"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}

{"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}

{"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}

{"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}

{"title":"Rome and the total solar eclipse of BC188 July 17: Apology","authors":"L. Morrison, F. Stephenson, C. Hohenkerk","doi":"10.1177/00218286221107706","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221107706","url":null,"abstract":"An apology for a missed reference.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"362 - 363"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48603606","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}

{"title":"Peurbach’s influential textbook","authors":"P. Barker","doi":"10.1177/00218286221110573","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221110573","url":null,"abstract":"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","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"369 - 370"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47086541","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}

{"title":"Spectrographic observations of the ionized iron coronal emission lines at Pic du Midi Observatory (F) in the mid-60s","authors":"J. Rozelot, J. Singh","doi":"10.1177/00218286221101604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221101604","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"300 - 327"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42211144","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}

{"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}

{"title":"Poetic Structures of the Cosmos","authors":"D. Danielson","doi":"10.1177/00218286221101128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221101128","url":null,"abstract":"any possibility both for “astrological images” and for nativities, since the variation of intensity does not mean a change of the quality itself; a simple variation of intensity in a quality seems insufficient to establish the qualitative difference required for an individual horoscope. Later the physicians Arnald of Villanova and Pietro d’Abano will explicitly refer to this latitude of quality, but in a very different framework in which there will be a room for an individual/accidental occult property. In any case, DR’s appealing analysis forces us to clarify the terms of the issue. In chap. 6 DR tackles Roger Bacon’s attitude toward the same kind of practices such as talismans, the power of words and fascinatio. He rightly recalls that these practices, when they are based on true astrology and natural causes, are never called “magic”—a word which Bacon attributes to wrong and evil practices. The three first parts of this book, dedicated to a conceptual approach, essentially focus on three authors and an anonymous text of the 13th century. The last part, which addresses the following centuries (1300–1500), takes “an institutional, socio-political and cultural” approach. This shift of approach for the later period might seem curious, but DR thereby demonstrates his freedom of thought and accurate pragmatism, without claiming to be exhaustive. DR here seeks to contradict Paul Lawrence Rose who, in 1975, on the one hand rightly discarded the misconception of an opposition of humanists toward mathematics but, in the other hand, asserted that the humanists were “antagonistic [. . .] towards judicial astrology” (p. 364). Chap. 9 addresses the famous Regiomontanus and also the Paduan Pietro d’Abano, one of the medieval physicians who went far in theorizing the importance of astrology for the physician. Chap. 10 addresses the “institutional foundations” or universities, Chap. 11 other circles, such as the Italian courts. Darrel Rutkin is a leading expert on medieval astrology. This fascinating book, the first stone of an ambitious edifice, provides many fundamental elements for understanding the place of astrology in the philosophical, theological, and scientific worldviews of the Middle Ages. The reader is often led to see the question from unexpected angles and is thus strongly stimulated in his thought. Accordingly, we can only hope that the following volumes of this inspiring and extraordinary program will be published soon.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"376 - 378"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41763552","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}