Collaborative Research: Cosmological Controversy Fifty Years Before Copernicus

这一合作项目将揭示一场被忽视的天文争论，这场争论对于解释哥白尼革命来说是前所未有的重要。约翰尼斯·里奥蒙塔努斯是十五世纪领先的数学天文学家；他对托勒密的《魔咒》的批判性分析为哥白尼发展他的太阳中心太阳系模型提供了重要的刺激。里奥蒙塔努斯的《席恩对特雷比宗的乔治的防御》是一部内容非常丰富但完全没有经过研究的573页的作品，攻击了特雷比佐德对《最大的预言》的陈述，而哥白尼的这部作品将黯然失色。雷格蒙塔纳斯的这项工作阐明了关于哥白尼宇宙学出现的最重要的已知线索，因为它在提出哥白尼后来将使用的替代模型方面充实了雷奥蒙塔纳斯的推理。在这个合作项目中，PI们将转录和分析Regiomontanus的冗长文本，在四篇初步文章中展示他们最重要的结果，并开始他们将撰写的关于这场天文争议及其在宇宙学史上的意义的专著。该项目将与威斯康星大学的迈克尔·尚克合作完成，后者通过拨款SBR9729712为这项工作单独提供资金。

This collaborative project will bring to light an overlooked astronomical controversy of previously unsuspected importance for the interpretation of the Copernican revolution. Johannes Regiomontanus was the leading mathematical astronomer of the fifteenth century; his critical analysis of Ptolemy's `Almagest` provided an important stimulus for Copernicus's development of his sun-centered model of the solar system. Regiomontanus's `Defense of Theon against George of Trebizond` is a very rich but completely unstudied 573-page attack on Trebizond's presentation of the `Almagest,` the work that Copernicus would eclipse. This work of Regiomontanus's illuminates the most important known clue about the emergence of Copernicus's cosmology, for it fleshes out Regiomontanus's reasoning in proposing the alternative models that Copernicus would later use. In this collaborative project the PIs will transcribe and analyze Regiomontanus's lengthy text, present their most important results in four preliminary articles, and begin the monograph they will write about this astronomical controversy and its significance in the history of cosmology. The project will be done in collaboration with Michael Shank at the University of Wisconsin, who is funded separately for this work through grant SBR9729712.