Collaborative Research: Cosmological Controversy Fifty Years Before Copernicus

这个合作项目将揭示一个被忽视的天文学争议，它对哥白尼革命的解释以前没有预料到的重要性。约翰内斯·雷吉奥蒙塔努斯是15世纪杰出的数学天文学家；他对托勒密的《天文学大论》的批判性分析为哥白尼提出以太阳为中心的太阳系模型提供了重要的刺激。雷吉蒙塔努斯的《保卫席恩对抗特拉比松的乔治》内容丰富，但却完全没有被研究过，长达573页，对特拉比松的《大成论》进行了抨击，而哥白尼的著作将会让它相形见绌。雷吉蒙塔努斯的这项工作阐明了哥白尼宇宙学出现的最重要的已知线索，因为它充实了雷吉蒙塔努斯在提出哥白尼后来使用的替代模型时的推理。在这个合作项目中，pi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，并开始撰写他们将撰写的关于这一天文学争议及其在宇宙学历史上的意义的专著。该项目将与威斯康星大学的Michael Shank合作完成，他将通过SBR9729712基金单独资助这项工作。

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.