Bernard Walther

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Bernard Walther (1430 in Memmingen - June 19, 1504 in Nuremberg) was a German merchant, humanist and astronomer in Nuremberg, Germany.

He was a man of large means, which he devoted to scientific pursuits. When Regiomontanus settled at Nuremberg in 1471, they worked in collaboration to build an observatory and a printing press. After the death of Regiomontanus in 1476 at Rome, Walther bought his instruments and continued the observation of planets till his death.

In 1484 Walther introduced clocks driven by weights; their first use in astronomical determinations. He further brought into prominence the effects of refraction in altering the apparent places of the heavenly bodies, and substituted Venus for the moon as a connecting-link between observations of the sun and stars. Resultantly, his observations are the most precise prior to Tycho Brahe.

The observations from Nuremberg of Regiomontanus and Walther were only published in 1544 by his pupil Johannes Schöner. Copernicus had received data from Schöner prior to publication and applied them for his calculations, attributing them erroneously to Schöner. In 1618, Willebrord Snell noted them as an appendix to his Observationes Hassiaceae.

Walther is the eponym of lunar crater Walther.

[edit] Authorities

JG Doppelmayr, Hist. Nachricht von den nürnbergischen Mathematicis, p. 23 (1730)
GA Will, Nürnbergisches Gelehrten-Lexikon, vii. 381 (1806)
JE Montucla, Hist. des mathematiques, i. 546
JS Bailly, Hist. de Paste. moderne, i. 319
EF Apelt, Die Reformation der Sternkunde, p. 54
JP von Wurzelbaur, Uranies Noricae basis astronomica (1719)
JF Weidler, Hist. astronomiae, p. 322
AG Kästner, Geschichte der Mathematik, ii. 324
Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberger, vii. 237 (1888) (H Petz)
R Wolf, Gesch. der Astr. p. 92, &e.