Journal for the History of Astronomy最新文献

{"title":"The Long Legacy of Ptolemy","authors":"J. Lennart Berggren","doi":"10.1177/00218286221081975","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221081975","url":null,"abstract":"In 2012 the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities announced the funding of a 25-year Academy Project of research into the reception and study of medieval Arabic and Latin versions of Ptolemaic works. Known as Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus (PAL), its primary aim is “to make the Ptolemaic corpus on the science of the stars available to researchers” (p. 3). To achieve this simply stated goal the organizers have created what is probably the largest collaborative, current project in the history of astronomy. Interested scholars may follow the activities of PAL on its website: https:// ptolemaeusbadwe.de. This volume represents results of the first triennial PAL conference, offering a deliberately broad coverage of Ptolemaic astronomy and astrology in Latin, Arabic and Greek. After a useful overview of each of its fourteen contributions, the book begins with four papers on the Greek and Near Eastern Traditions. In his lead-in paper, “The Ancient Ptolemy,” Alexander Jones seeks to present Ptolemy “in the round” and begins by asking which “Ptolemaic” works Ptolemy wrote. Reviewing the evidence on the doubtful works, he exploits the searchability of the digital Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) to identify traits of Ptolemy’s writing that allow a secure test of his authorship. One result of this is a strong argument for accepting the previously doubtful philosophical work, Criterion, as a work of Ptolemy. After considering the relative order in which Ptolemy composed his works, Jones presents two views of the Ptolemaic canon: a view by discipline and another by prevailing themes. For example, both the Almagest and the Harmonics, although in different disciplines, are “deeply concerned with applying sense perception . . .and reason” to create models underlying observed phenomena (p. 28). Jones concludes by emphasizing Ptolemy’s concern with “mathematically defined modes of representation of the cosmos” (p. 29). To Jones’s examples one might add the Analemma, the subject of Nathan Sidoli’s “Mathematical Methods in Ptolemy’s Analemma.” The analemma was an ancient method of geometrically representing a sphere on a plane, a problem Ptolemy faced in his Planispherium and Geography. Sidoli carefully explains the method, based on the division of the celestial sphere into eight octants by three mutually perpendicular great circles all passing through the observer’s position at the center of that sphere. These three 1081975 JHA0010.1177/00218286221081975Journal for the History of AstronomyEssay Review Essay Review2022","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"223 - 229"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44587359","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":"Accuracy of eclipse records in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle","authors":"L. Morrison, F. Stephenson, C. Hohenkerk","doi":"10.1177/00218286221097111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221097111","url":null,"abstract":"From a comparison with calculation of the dates and descriptions of the allusions to lunar and solar eclipses recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we confirm the identifications of the eclipses given by Swanton in his 1996 translation and annotation. The details of the analysis on which this is based are given in the supplementary material published as an appendix in the on-line edition of the Journal.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"209 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47961619","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":"Early application of kinetic theory of gases to star clusters","authors":"Bruce D. Popp","doi":"10.1177/00218286221078338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221078338","url":null,"abstract":"This is a case of working by analogy to apply successful work from one field, the kinetic theory of gases, to another field, the distribution of stars in globular clusters. The origin of the analogy lies in Henri Poincaré reading a vague suggestion by Lord Kelvin and recognizing the interest and potential value of this suggestion. The result is the application of mechanics to the dynamics of clusters with very many stars. A good idea, even a very clever good idea, still takes significant work to elaborate in all its implications. Here we see assumptions that lead to partial success in providing a relation between the density of stars in a cluster and the distance from the center. Partial success motivated work using assumptions that were less restrictive. We follow the assumptions and work through 1916, when work paused for many years.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"141 - 162"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46868559","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":"WT-PE: Prime editing with nuclease wild-type Cas9 enables versatile large-scale genome editing.","authors":"Rui Tao, Yanhong Wang, Yun Hu, Yaoge Jiao, Lifang Zhou, Lurong Jiang, Li Li, Xingyu He, Min Li, Yamei Yu, Qiang Chen, Shaohua Yao","doi":"10.1038/s41392-022-00936-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41392-022-00936-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Large scale genomic aberrations including duplication, deletion, translocation, and other structural changes are the cause of a subtype of hereditary genetic disorders and contribute to onset or progress of cancer. The current prime editor, PE2, consisting of Cas9-nickase and reverse transcriptase enables efficient editing of genomic deletion and insertion, however, at small scale. Here, we designed a novel prime editor by fusing reverse transcriptase (RT) to nuclease wild-type Cas9 (WT-PE) to edit large genomic fragment. WT-PE system simultaneously introduced a double strand break (DSB) and a single 3' extended flap in the target site. Coupled with paired prime editing guide RNAs (pegRNAs) that have complementary sequences in their 3' terminus while target different genomic regions, WT-PE produced bi-directional prime editing, which enabled efficient and versatile large-scale genome editing, including large fragment deletion up to 16.8 megabase (Mb) pairs and chromosomal translocation. Therefore, our WT-PE system has great potential to model or treat diseases related to large-fragment aberrations.</p>","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"43 1","pages":"108"},"PeriodicalIF":39.3,"publicationDate":"2022-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018734/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86955433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Astronomical or political: Interpretation of comets in times of crisis in Qing China","authors":"Ting Chen, Lingfeng Lü","doi":"10.1177/00218286211070275","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286211070275","url":null,"abstract":"By the late Qing dynasty, Western scientific learning had been disseminated among the Chinese literati. However, astronomical knowledge was still interpreted in the traditional Chinese astrological manner and served as an instrument in political affairs, especially in times of crisis. This paper examines controversies over astronomical observations between the proponents of traditional astrology and Western learning by presenting two cases of comet sightings. The first case is of a comet sighting between 1880 and 1882, and the second is of comets sighted before the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The reasons for the recurrence of ancient cometary prognostication in the early 20th century, when modern knowledge of comets was widespread in China, were explored as well.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"13 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42645090","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":"Corrigendum to ‘The Heliocentric Path of the Moon’","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/00218286211067843","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286211067843","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"128 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45634103","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":"Michael Hoskin (1930–2021)","authors":"JamesJ . Evans, R. Kremer","doi":"10.1177/00218286221077318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221077318","url":null,"abstract":"Michael Hoskin, who founded this journal and edited it for 45 years, died at his home in Cambridge, England, on December 5, 2021. Some years ago, Michael, wanting to lighten our load on that day in the future when we would eventually lose him, and wanting, too, for things to be set down correctly in his beloved journal, sent us notes for his own obituary. We have drawn upon them substantially but have added to them. Michael Hoskin was born in south London on February 27, 1930, the only child of a tax official and a schoolteacher. He attended a Catholic grammar school in west London, surviving first the bombs of the blitz and later the flying bombs and rockets. The school focused on the Classics and so Hoskin spent his last two years there exclusively in the study of Latin and Greek. After leaving school he was for 5 years a student at London University, earning a BA and MA in pure mathematics. In 1952 he transferred to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he wrote his doctoral thesis in algebraic geometry. He then spent a year in military research before returning to Cambridge in 1956 as Research Fellow at Jesus College. In the same year he married Jean Margaret (Jane) Small, with whom he was to have five children. The award of the Fellowship should have reassured Hoskin of his abilities as a pure mathematician, but he was unable to throw off his sense of inferiority to his sole fellow doctoral-student, one Michael Atiyah. Atiyah’s recent obituarist has described him as England’s finest mathematician since Newton, but no one warned Hoskin that Atiyah was out of the ordinary. Taking therefore a gloomy view of his own mathematical ability, Hoskin began to cast around for a career outside mathematics. He chanced upon an advertisement from Leicester University for an inaugural lectureship in a subject called history of science. Although the rival candidates each had a PhD in history of science, it was Hoskin who was appointed. A frantic 3 months of preparation for his lectures were to follow. Two years later, Rupert Hall suddenly resigned his lectureship in history of science in Cambridge. Hoskin applied and, although there was a distinguished field, he was appointed. He was to spend the rest of his career in Cambridge. At first his only colleague was a philosopher of science and they taught a joint course, with Hoskin single-handedly covering the whole of the history of science and medicine. Furthermore, on arrival in Cambridge he had been asked by the philosopher Richard Braithwaite to take over supervision of a doctoral student named Derek T. Whiteside, who was working in 17th-century mathematics. After Whiteside completed his dissertation he then proposed a publishing project of the first magnitude, a multi-volume edition of Newton’s mathematical papers. Cambridge University Press agreed to take the project on, but only if Hoskin would guarantee it by being formally involved in seeing the work through the press. The 1077318 JHA0010.1177/00218286221077318","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"120 - 123"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47541241","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":"Annibale Riccò and the catoptric proof of the Earth’s curvature","authors":"P. F. Nali","doi":"10.1177/00218286211049617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286211049617","url":null,"abstract":"Phenomena as common as the daily rising or setting of the Sun can reveal, upon careful examination, something surprising and unexpected, which has been attracting scientific attention belatedly and had to wait long before being explained. From systematic observation of sunrises over the marine horizon, the Italian astronomer Annibale Riccò (1844–1919) unexpectedly claimed to have recognized a new and novel evidence of the Earth’s roundness, scrutinizing distorted images of the Sun reflected off waters. Others had previously come to a similar conclusion, but it was Riccò’s pioneering work that brought this “catoptric” proof of the Earth’s curvature to the scientific limelight of his time. The interesting debate ensued gave rise to more articulated interpretations of Riccò’s observations, including recovery of olden “dioptric” explanations. The catoptric model was eventually abandoned, as it does not adequately take into account the effects of atmospheric refraction and above all the observed phenomenon is not genuinely “reflective.” The argument is nevertheless correct in principle and retains historical and pedagogical interest.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"88 - 119"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44236496","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":"A Spanish study of the 1572 nova: Jerónimo Muñoz and his Book on the New Comet","authors":"G. Recio","doi":"10.1177/00218286221077337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221077337","url":null,"abstract":"The nova of 1572 was one of the most important astronomical events of the 16th century, mentioned by more than 40 authors. One of them was Jerónimo Muñoz, a Valentian Professor of Mathematics, who not only observed it, but also wrote a Book on the New Comet in Castilian, at the request of the Spanish King, Phillip II. There he addresses, among other things, the nature and location of the phenomenon, concluding that it was a star-like comet, which was located at a distance beyond that of the Sun. The article deals with Jerónimo Muñoz’s life and work within the Spanish astronomical community and explains the main ideas Muñoz presented in the Book regarding the nature and significance of the nova. The online edition of the article includes an appendix containing a complete English translation of the Book on the New Comet.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"3 - 12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46931061","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":"Erratum to ‘A Reading Guide for Bruno’s On the Infinite’","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/00218286211067841","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286211067841","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"129 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48609529","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}