Thursday, February 16, 2006
This Day in Renaissance History
On this day in 1514, Austrian astronomer and mathematician Georg Joachim Rheticus is born. In 1528, Rheticus' physician father, who taught him mathematics, is beheaded for being a sorcerer. Called the first of Copernicus' followers, Rheticus helps his mentor by editing De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Rheticus also publishes his own work on the heliocentric nature of the local cosmos, Narratio prima, in 1540. In mathematics, Rheticus is the first to use angles rather than arcs of a circle in trigonometric functions. Rheticus lives to the semi-ripe old age of 62 and dies in 1576.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 12:04 AM 
