Peter Apian

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Peter Apian, engraving by Theodor de Bry

Peter Apian (actually Bennewitz, Latinized Petrus Apianus ; born April 16, 1495 in Leisnig , † April 21, 1552 in Ingolstadt ) was a German scholar of the Renaissance period . He was a mathematician , astronomer , cosmographer and cartographer , also founder of the Ingolstadt printing company Academia and publisher .

life and work

Apian was born as Peter Bennewitz or Bienewitz ( bee witz in the sense of bee village ; Latin apis means “bee”) in Leisnig. His father was the shoemaker Martin Bennewitz, who in addition to his house with a shoemaker's workshop on Leisniger Markt also owned an estate in Tautendorf . Apian first studied in Leipzig and then went to Vienna (until 1523) to become a student of Georg Tannstetter , a representative of the Vienna astronomical school . Tannstetter was also the rector and at that time "gave the University of Vienna its stamp as a humanistically educated mathematician, astronomer and astrologer". Apian later expressed his respect by dedicating a book to Tannstetter.

Torquetum for observing and calculating celestial words , around 1540

Apian became professor of mathematics in Ingolstadt in 1527 , although he only graduated with a bachelor's degree . There he set up his own printing house (called "Academia"), in which, among other things , he printed the important Tabula Hungarie (Hungary map) in 1528 .

Apian collected extensive observational data on planetary movements and developed scientific instruments that were used to predict these planetary orbits on the mechanical model. Some of them were paper disks stapled in his books that could be turned against each other. How these so-called Volvellen are to be used, he explained exactly in the course of his texts. Among other things, Apian developed a method for measuring geographic longitudes using lunar distances to stars. In 1527 he was the first occidental author to publish, even before Blaise Pascal , a variant of Pascal's triangle , which earlier appeared in Arabic and Chinese authors. Observations of Halley's Comet in 1531 showed Peter Apian (and Girolamo Fracastoro, independently of him ), that the comet's tail always points in the opposite direction to the sun.

As a court mathematician, Apian gained the favor of Emperor Charles V , who ennobled him and his brothers (Georg, Gregor and Niclas) on July 20, 1541 at the Reichstag in Regensburg by appointing them to be "knightly nobles" (Imperial Knighthood) . Only a little later he was appointed Count Palatinate .

Peter Apian is the father of the mathematician and cartographer Philipp Apian , who succeeded him in the Ingolstadt professorship.

coat of arms

  • Folium populi , 1533

  • Peter Apian, in the crown of the cartouche, his coat of arms, awarded in 1541: the imperial double-headed eagle, etc. (wrong tinging)

  • Coat of arms of the Bennewitz / Apian family on Peter Apian's father's house on the market in Leisnig

Bust of Apian in the Hall of Fame , Munich

Honors

In 1935 the lunar crater Apianus was named after Apian and in 2002 the asteroid (19139) Apian .

The Peter Apian Oberschule Leisnig bears his name.

Works (selection)

Own writings
  • Pages from the Astronomicum Caesareum
  • Astronomicum Caesareum MET DT5529.jpg
  • Astronomicum Caesareum MET DT5527.jpg
  • Astronomicum Caesareum MET DT5530.jpg
  • Astronomicum Caesareum MET DT5528.jpg
  • Astronomicum Caesareum MET DT658.jpg
Writings edited by Apian
  • Novae Theoricae planetarum. Ingolstadt 1528
  • Vitellionis Mathematici doctissimi Peri optikēs , id est de natura, ratione & proiectione radiorum visus, luminum, colorum atque formarum, quam vulgo perspectivam vocant. Nuremberg 1535 (edited together with Tannstetter - he provided the template, Apian the printing).

literature

Web links

Commons : Peter Apian  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ City of Leisnig - Peter Apian (1495 - 1552). In: http://www.leisnig.de . Retrieved November 29, 2017 .
  2. ↑ So Wattenberg: Apianus , p. 7. In his first publications there is a great thematic similarity with the emphases of his teacher (Wattenberg: Apianus , p. 7).
  3. ↑ Apian dedicated his new edition of Georg von Peuerbach's planetary theory (1528) to “his famous teacher and professor in mathematics” .
  4. ↑ Ralf Kern: Scientific instruments in their time . Volume 1: From astrolabe to mathematical cutlery . Cologne, 2010. pp. 330f.
  5. ↑ Alexander von Humboldt : Kosmos , Vol. I, 107 . Humboldt expresses himself precisely as follows: “[The comet tails] are, as (according to Édouard Biot ) the Chinese astronomers noted as early as 837, but in Europe Fracastoro and Peter Apian only announced in a more definite way in the sixteenth century, always from the sun so turned away that the extended axis goes through the center of the sun. "
  6. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 47168
  7. ↑ In the painting "The Ambassadors" (1533) by Hans Holbein the Elder. J. reproduced (National Gallery, London)
personal data
SURNAME Apian, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bennewitz, Peter; Bienewitz, Peter; Apianus, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astronomer and geographer
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1495
PLACE OF BIRTH Quietly
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1552
Place of death Ingolstadt