Johan Philip Lansberg

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Johan Philip Lansberg , also van Lansberge and Philippe, (born August 25, 1561 in Ghent , † December 8, 1632 in Middelburg ) was a Dutch astronomer and clergyman, known as an early representative of the Copernican doctrine in the Netherlands.

Life

Lansberg was born in the Spanish Netherlands and as a Calvinist the family was persecuted. The family left Ghent soon after 1566 and went to England via France. Lansberg grew up in England, where he studied mathematics and theology. Details are not known.

After the Union of Utrecht in 1579, Lansberg was able to return to the Netherlands and initially went to Ghent as a Calvinist preacher. In 1580 he received a pastor's post in Antwerp and was also appointed by the Reformed Church in Ghent as a preacher in Exaerde and Saffelaere . After the siege of Antwerp by the Spanish in 1585, he moved with other Calvinists to the northern Netherlands and settled in Leiden . He continued his theology studies there and became a pastor in Goes in October 1586 . In addition, he dealt with mathematics and astronomy. The Reformed Church in Amsterdam considered calling him there in 1597, but they refrained from doing so because even then he had a reputation for being more concerned with astronomy. In the context of the Spanish threat to Goes in 1609, Lansberg took an uncompromising stance that brought him into conflict with the city. In 1613 he and his son were dismissed as pastors and he moved to Middelburg. There he seems to have worked as a doctor in addition to astronomy.

He was married and had six sons and four daughters. His son Jacob (* 1590) was a doctor in Goes and also a mathematician who, after the death of his father, defended his father's astronomical teaching in the succession of Copernicus. His son Pieter also became a pastor and assisted his father in Goes.

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Triangulorum geometriae libri quatuor , 1631

His first book Triangulorum geometriae appeared in 1591. It contained tables of trigonometric functions (which show the influence of Thomas Finck and François Viète ) and methods for their calculation and dealt with spherical trigonometry. The tablets were used by Johannes Kepler , among others .

In 1616 he published a book in which he calculated pi to 28 digits with a new method (Cyclometria nova), using the quadratrix . In 1615 Ludolf von Ceulen had calculated pi to 35 places using Archimedes' method.

In astronomy he followed Copernicus , but was dissatisfied with his observations and his presentation and initially saw it as necessary to make his own observations. His first astronomical publications appeared in 1619 (Progymnasmatum astronomiae restitutae de motu solis) as the first volume of a work in which methods of calculating the positions of the sun and moon should also be presented in the past (the two subsequent volumes, which should deal with the position of the moon and the Precession of the equinoxes , did not appear). The work had little success. From 1628 he worked with the young astronomer Maarten van den Hove (Martinus Hortensius) as his assistant. In 1628 he published the second edition of his book from 1619, a manual on the use of astronomical instruments ( astrolabe , quadrant ) and a popular presentation of the Copernican doctrine in Dutch (Bedenckingen op den dagelyckshen, ende jaerlyckschen loop van den aerdt-kloot) and Latin (Commentationes in motum terrae diurnum, 1630). This made the Copernican doctrine known to wider circles in the Netherlands, but also led to conflicts with opponents of the Copernican doctrine such as Jean-Baptiste Morin (supporters of the Copernican doctrine such as Ismael Boulliau also criticized his arguments for it). The dispute with his critics was continued after Lansberg's death by his son Jacob.

He became known for his astronomical tables , Tabulae motuum coelestium perpetuae (Middelburg 1632), his tables for the planetary constellations , on which he had been working for 45 years, together with the presentation of the underlying theory and observation results by Lansberg, for example on eclipses. He had calculated the tables to support the heliocentric system . But since he rejected Kepler's elliptical orbits , the tables were generally inferior to Kepler's Rudolfinian tables published five years earlier .

In 1639, on the basis of Lansberg's tables , Jeremiah Horrox, supplemented by his own observations, was able to correctly predict a transit of Venus which, according to Kepler's tables, would have taken place 9 hours earlier.

He also published a volume of sermons in Latin in 1594 (reprinted in Hanau in 1620 and Frankfurt in 1621 and translated into Dutch in 1645).

The lunar crater Lansberg and the asteroid (12173) Lansbergen are named after him.

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ and other spellings such as Landsberghe, Lansberghe, Lancenberghe, Lansbergus, Lanbergius, Lambergius
personal data
SURNAME Lansberg, Johan Philip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lansberge, Philippe van
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1561
PLACE OF BIRTH Ghent
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1632
Place of death Middelburg