Ambrosius Rhode

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Ambrosius Rhode (also: Rhodius, Rhodii, Rodius etc .; * August 18, 1577 in Kemberg ; † August 24, 1633 in Wittenberg ) was a German mathematician, astronomer and doctor.

Life

Ambrosius Rhode was the son of the Kemberger mayor Ambrosius Rhode and his wife Maria, daughter of the Kemberger provost Matthias Wanckel . He first attended the school in his hometown. Originally, he was intended for a craft profession, as his father was persuaded that it would be difficult for his two sons to study. But his father finally recognized the special abilities, so that on March 28, 1590, he and his brother Jakob entered it into the register of the University of Wittenberg . In 1591 he then sent his sons to the electoral high school St. Augustin in Grimma, which their uncle Johannes Wanckel had already attended. They stayed there for four years and then began studying at the University of Wittenberg on October 9, 1595.

Ambrosius received an electoral scholarship and in 1600, together with his brother, obtained the academic degree of a master's degree . On October 24, 1600, Tycho Brahe wrote to Melchior Jöstel, the then Wittenberg mathematics professor, and asked him to send him a mathematics student who could help him observe and note the course of the sky. So Ambrosius Rhode came to Brahe in Prague and stayed with him for a long time. At Brahe's he was with Johannes Kepler almost every day , from whom he also gained a deep insight into the sciences through long conversations.

He then went on an educational trip that took him to Bohemia , Moravia , Austria and Styria . In 1601 he returned to Wittenberg, was accepted into the philosophical faculty in 1603 and began to give lectures as a private lecturer. As early as March 1607, Rhode had been considered for a possible mathematical professorship. But Matthias Anomäus should take over this first . In order to keep Rhode for the position, he was granted an extraordinary professorship in mathematics endowed with 100 guilders .

After he had also become dean of the philosophical faculty in 1608, he was accepted as an adjunct to the philosophical faculty on September 20, 1608 , where he carried out 26 doctorates for candidates of the liberal arts within six months . After Anomäus returned to his Austrian homeland, Rhode took over the full professorship of lower mathematics on December 18, 1609. Rhode, who had started studying theology, has concentrated on mathematics and astronomy since his return to Wittenberg.

Nevertheless, he was very familiar with the disciplines of physics, mechanics, medicine and chemistry. It is therefore not surprising that on August 10, 1610, under the deanery of Daniel Sennert , with the support of Ernst Hettenbach , he obtained his doctorate in a solemn disputation as a doctor of medicine. After the death of his former sponsor Jöstel, the position of professorship in higher mathematics became vacant again in 1611. Originally it was planned to win Kepler for the position, but the original plan was discarded, as the electoral Dresden consistory did not agree. Therefore, one put Rhode in the place of higher mathematics and tried to win Kepler for an equivalent position. But it never came to that, so that Tobias Tilemann took over the professorship of lower mathematics.

Rhode, who during his time with Brahe and Kepler had turned from his theological pursuits to a scientific mathematician, turned out to be a didactic innovator in his field. With all his might he campaigned for the mathematical subjects at the Wittenberg Academy, for which he also broke new ground. His teaching program attracted a large audience because, in addition to general lectures on mathematics, he was also able to convey specific facts on astronomy, mechanics, statics, project theory and architecture theory.

Rhode divided mathematics into 14 branches of science, based on the Old Testament creation account according to the time. He referred to the divine creation arithmetic (as number), geometry (as measure) and statics (as mass), which were in balance with astronomy , gnomonic , chronology , geography and nautical science (heaven and earth). For him, man was the observer of God's works ( optics ), who allowed people to live in houses and cities ( architecture ), to defend themselves against external attacks ( fortification , artillery , castrametation ) and to sing his praises ( music ). His approach was characterized by an increasing technical-scientific application of mathematics, which in relation to war science was undoubtedly a consequence of the period of the Thirty Years' War in which he lived. After having been dean of the philosophical faculty in 1608, 1610, 1614, 1617, 1623 and 1629, he took over the sub- rectorate in 1616 and the rectorate of the Wittenberg University in 1630 .

family

Rhode was a great-grandson of Gertraude Pannier and Bartholomäus Bernhardi . His first daughter Katharina Bernhardi was the first child to emerge from a Protestant marriage of priests, and on June 14, 1540 she married Matthias Wanckel. His mother Maria Wanckel came from this marriage. On February 4, 1612 he married Catarina Zanger, a daughter of Johann Zanger the Younger, and his wife Catharina, the daughter of the mayor of Thorn, Matthias Greitz. This marriage resulted in a son who was born on the first day of his rectorate in 1616, but died again soon. He himself wanted to go to church on August 24, 1633 after lunch with his wife, suddenly sank down and died at 6 o'clock in the evening at the age of 56. He was buried next to his son on August 27th.

Another Ambrosius Rhodius (astrologer) (November 10, 1605 - December 27, 1696), also from Kemberg, was the son of pastor Jacob Rhode, a nephew of Rhode, who taught him in Wittenberg. Due to war and plague, he went to Scandinavia via Königsberg, where he was active as an astrologer and doctor, and published a. a. 1643 Disputationes supra ideam medicinæ philosophicæ P. Severini .

Selection of works

In literary terms, his main work is a fully annotated edition of Euclid , the final edition that appeared after his death in 1634, and a textbook on optics. In addition, he also wrote works on twilight research and initiated the first urban water pipeline, which is still in Wittenberg in a further expansion stage as the only functioning pipe water pipeline system from the Middle Ages north of the Alps, as a technical monument.

  • Optica Ambrosii Rhodii, Kembergensis, Philosophiæ ac Medicinæ Doctoris, & Mathematum Professoris in Academia Leucorea. Cuit additus est tractatus de crepusculis. Wittenberg, Samuel Selfisch , 1611
  • Ambrosii Rhodii mathematici ac medici Cometa per bootem., Wittenberg, Paul Helwig, 1619
  • Euclidis elementorum libri XIII: succinctis & perspicuis demonstrationibus comprehensi / à M. Ambrosio Rhodio…, Wittenberg, Paul Helwig, 1609
  • ... Mathesis Militaris, Or War Mathematic, Before several of his private auditors, Wittenberg, Salomon Auerbach, 1600
  • Dialogus de transmigratione animarum Pythagorica: Quomodo eadem concedi defendi possit
  • De crepusculis, Wittenberg 1611
  • Aqua Rhodia,
  • PROGRAM, in funere Magnifici huius Academiae Rectoris, VIRI Reverendi, Clarissimi, et Excellentissimi, DN. LEONHARDI HÜTTERI, SS. Theol. Doctoris, Eiusdemque Professoris primarii ac Senirois: de umversa Christi Ecclesia egregie meriti… In: Henning Witte: Memoriae philosophorum, oratorum, poetarum, historicorum et philologorum nostri seculi clarissimorum renovatae decas prima (- sexta) , Volume 1, Königsberg [u. a.] 1674–1676, pp. 516–553 - funeral speech with list of writings in Henning Witte's biographical compilation Memoriae philosophorum, oratorum, poetarum, historicorum et philologorum , uni-mannheim.de - CAMENA project

literature

Web links

Original works:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jole Shackelford: A philosophical path for Paracelsian medicine: the ideas, intellectual context, and influence of Petrus Severinus (1540 / 2-1602) . Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 2004, ISBN 87-7289-817-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 25, 2010]).
  2. ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=wHBLGwAACAAJ&dq=Ambrosius+Rhodius+%2B1643&lr= (link not available)
personal data
SURNAME Rhode, Ambrosius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rhodius, Ambrosius; Rhodii, Ambrosius; Rodius, Ambrosius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician, astronomer and physician
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1577
PLACE OF BIRTH Kemberg
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1633
Place of death Wittenberg