Pedro Nunes

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pedro Nunes (left, detailed view) in the Padrão dos Descobrimentos , Lisbon

Pedro Nunes (* 1502 in Alcácer do Sal , † August 11, 1578 in Coimbra ) was Portugal's most famous mathematician and astronomer . The Latinized form of the name is Petrus Nonius or, with additional indication of origin, Petrus Nonius Salaciensis .

Nunes achieved significant achievements in the areas of navigation and angle measurement . He improved the astrolabe with a complex device that made it possible to read the angles more precisely . The vernier , which is still in use today and named after him, arose from this invention .

Life

Nunes had Jewish ancestors and studied from around 1517 at the University of Salamanca (Spain), where he graduated (baccalaureate) in medicine in 1523. In the same year he married a local woman. They had six children together.

In 1527 he was back in Portugal, where he was the brother of King John III until 1531 . , Louis of Portugal (Luis), taught. Also from 1527 he taught the navigators Martim Afonso de Sousa and João de Castro in navigation. In 1529 he was appointed royal cosmographer and in 1547 first cosmographer of the kingdom, and in this position he was primarily a navigation teacher.

In the same year he began to give lectures on philosophy at the University of Lisbon , where he received the chair of logic in 1530. In 1532 he switched to a chair in metaphysics and in the same year earned a doctorate in medicine. He was also the teacher of Henry I before he became Bishop of Braga. From 1544 to 1561 he was professor of mathematics at the University of Coimbra , where, among other things, Christophorus Clavius ​​was his student. In between he lived in Lisbon from 1557 to 1561.

In 1548 he received the title Cavaleiro do Hábito de Cristo from the king .

Services

The angle encoder invented by Nunes

Since one of the main uses of astronomy was navigation at sea, it was here that Nunes' skills showed. He dealt with the problems of the so-called flat maps , which were common at the time , and which depict the earth's surface in a distorted manner due to the constant representation of longitudes in the plane projection. He was the first to describe the properties of the Loxodrome around 1550 , which is based on the simple rule of course determination of always maintaining the same angle to the meridian , which appears as a straight line in the Mercator projection , but, as Nunes recognized, not the shortest connection between two points on earth corresponds.

Nunes introduced the nonius named after him - a system of concentric circles that made angle readings more accurate. Among other things, this served to improve the astrolabe , which was used by Tycho Brahe and Christoph Clavius in his day, for example . In 1631 Pierre Vernier described a simplified form of the vernier, which corresponds to the devices known today.

Nunes had a European reputation in his time and influenced, among others, John Dee .

The lunar crater Nonius and the asteroid (5313) Nunes are named after him.

Fonts

De erratis Orontii Finaei , 1546
  • Tratado da sphera com a Theorica do Sol e da Lua. Lisbon 1537. The book is based on translations of works by Sacrobosco , Georg von Peuerbach and the geography of Claudius Ptolemy .
  • De Crepusculis. Lisbon 1542. 2nd edition Coimbra 1571. The book deals with the length of twilight.
  • De erratis Orontii Finaei. Coimbra 1546. 2nd edition 1571. Refutation by Oronce Fine of the alleged solution of the three classical geometrical problems of angle trisection, cube doubling and circle quadrature .
  • Petri Nonii Salaciensis Opera. 1566. Collected works, an expanded edition appeared in 1573 as De arte atque ratione navigandi.
  • Libro de álgebra en arithmética y geometría. Antwerp 1567. His algebra, on which he has been writing since 1534.

literature

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ The name comes from Willebrord Snell (1624)
personal data
SURNAME Nunes, Pedro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nonius, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH 1502
PLACE OF BIRTH Alcácer do Sal
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1578
Place of death Coimbra