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，这一争议对于解释哥白尼革命具有前所未有的重要性。 约翰内斯·雷格蒙塔努斯是15世纪著名的数学天文学家;他对托勒密《天文学大成》的批判性分析为哥白尼发展他的太阳系日心说提供了重要的动力。 雷格蒙塔努斯的《提翁对特拉比松的乔治的辩护》是一本非常丰富但完全未经研究的573页的书，它攻击了特拉比松对《天文学大成》的介绍，哥白尼的这部著作将使之黯然失色。 雷格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，因为它充实了雷格蒙塔努斯提出哥白尼后来使用的替代模型的推理。 在这个合作项目的PI将转录和分析Regiomontanus的冗长的文本，目前他们最重要的结果在四个初步的文章，并开始专着，他们将写这个天文争议及其意义上的历史宇宙学。 该项目将与威斯康星州大学的Michael Shank合作完成，他通过拨款SBR 9729712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.