Nicolaus Reimers

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Tychonic system
Tychonic system
Nicolaus Reimers’ 1588 geo-heliocentric planetary model
Nicolaus Reimers’ 1588 geo-heliocentric planetary model

Nicolaus Reimers (* 2 February 1551 in Hennstedt (Dithmarschen) - 16 October 1600 in Prague), also Reimarus Ursus, Nicolaus Reimers Bär or Nicolaus Reymers Baer was an astronomer and imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II. He was also known as Bär, latinized to Ursus ("bear").

Reimers was a bitter rival of Tycho Brahe (his successor as imperial mathematician) after he tried to claim the Tychonic system, which is also attributed to Paul Wittich, as his own.

Johannes Kepler committed a faux pas early in his career by sending a laudatory letter to Reimers while seeking the patronage of Tycho; Ursus published the letter in the preface to his work claiming priority for Tycho's cosmological ideas.[1]

But unlike Tycho's geoheliocentric system in which the Earth does not rotate and the Martian and Solar orbits intersect, in that of Ursus and his follower Roslin the Earth had a daily rotation and also the Martian and Solar orbits do not intersect, thus avoiding the Tychonic conclusion in respect of the Martian orbit that there are no solid celestial spheres on the ground that they cannot possibly interpenetrate. [2] But on the other hand the orbits of Mercury and Venus would obviously intersect the Martian orbit in Reimers' illustration of his model, and indeed also intersect Jupiter's orbit.

However Kepler discovered Tycho had posited intersecting Martian and Solar orbits because he had mistakenly concluded from his data that at opposition Mars is nearer the Sun than the Earth because of his research assistants' mistaken calculation of its daily parallax from observations during its 1582-3 opposition as greater than that of the Sun's presumed 3' parallax. [3] Kepler discovered Tycho’s observations revealed little or no Martian parallax, implying it was further than the Sun at opposition. This would have refuted Tycho's system in favour of Ursus's and Roslin's. It seems it has yet to be determined whether the dominant astronomical system of the 17th century was the geoheliocentric system of Tycho or that of Ursus and Roslin at least in respect of non-intersecting Solar and Martian orbits, and also in that of the Earth's rotation or not.


[edit] Work

  • Geodaesia Ranzoviana, Leipzig 1583.
  • Nicolai Raymari Ursi Dithmari Fundamentum astronomicum, Straßburg 1588.
  • Metamorphosis Logicae, Straßburg 1589.
  • Nicolai Raimari Ursi Dithmarsi de Astronomicis hypothesibus, Prag 1597.
  • Chronotheatron, Prag 1597.
  • Nicolai Raimari Ursi dithmarsi Arithmetica analytica vulgo Cosa oder Algebra, 1601.

[edit] External links

[edit] Literature

  1. ^ Max Caspar, Kepler, Translated and edited by C. Doris Hellman, New York, Abelard-Schuman, 1959
  2. ^ See pp34 & 36 of Christine Schofield's 'The Tychonic and semi-Tychonic world systems' in Wilson & Taton 1989 'Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics Part A: Tycho Brahe to Newton' CUP
  3. ^ See p178-80 of Dreyer's 1890 'Tycho Brahe'
  • Owen Gingerich, Robert S. Westman: The Wittich Connection: Conflict and Priority in Late Sixteenth-century Cosmology, American Philosophical Society, 1988, [1]
  • Dieter Launert: Nicolaus Reimers (Raimarus Ursus). Günstling Rantzaus – Brahes Feind. Leben und Werk. München 1999. ISBN 3892410305
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