Thomas Digges

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illustration of the Copernican universe from Thomas Digges book

Thomas Digges (* 1546 in Wootton , Kent , England , † August 24, 1595 in London ), son of Leonard Digges, was an English cosmographer , astronomer, mathematician and military engineer.

Life

Digges was wealthy by nature, the family belonged to the aristocracy and owned estates in Kent . However, his father Leonard (around 1520 to 1659) temporarily lost his property under Queen Mary , as he was accused of treason (participating in the Wyatt conspiracy ). After the accession of Elizabeth I , Thomas Digges got it back. His father Leonard was a scientist (astronomy, math, optics, land surveying, cartography, military technology), probably also to earn a living while his goods were confiscated. He published Tectonicon in 1556, a handbook of land surveying, and his son Thomas published further works of his father after his death in the books Pantometria and Stratioticos , but with many additions of their own, so that the contributions of the two cannot be separated. Stratioticos is primarily concerned with the military and contains one of the earliest scientific studies of ballistics in England. In addition, Leonard Digges published the (also astronomical) almanac Prognostication in 1553 , which received many editions up to 1605. He dedicated the almanac to Lord Clinton , whose influence he probably also owes that he was not executed as part of the suppression of the Wyatt conspiracy.

After the death of his father, the natural philosopher John Dee , with whom he was close friends, is considered to be Thomas's teacher . There is no proof of attendance at one of the universities of Oxford or Cambridge. Digges also worked as a member of the English Parliament (1572 and 1584) and from 1586 to 1594 was a general responsible for supplying the English army , which fought as auxiliary troops in the Netherlands against the Spanish. He initially served under the Earl of Leicester , who was his patron (he dedicated his Stratioticos to him in 1579 ). He also wrote a letter of defense for Leicester after Leicester had to resign from command in the Netherlands.

In 1582 he was responsible for directing work on the fortification of Dover and in 1581 published a plan of the city, port and fortress.

One of the main scientific achievements of Digges is the examination of the Copernican worldview. He proved that the idea of ​​the heavenly shells is not scientifically tenable. In his work A Perfit Description of the Caelestial Orbes , which was an appendix to his father's Prognostication Everlasting , he confessed himself to be a Copernican (with a translation of some introductory parts of De Revolutionibus by Copernicus) and explained a homogeneous distribution of stars in an infinite universe. This made him the leader of the early Copernicans in England. After Stillman Drake , with this treatise he influenced Giordano Bruno , who came to England in 1583 and then developed his idea of ​​an infinite universe.

Like his father, Thomas Digges dealt with perspective glasses . He coined the name theodolite for the device he invented and used for measuring vertical angles. The device represented one of the essential development steps from the traditional diopters on the way to the modern theodolite.

Digges worked to popularize science. He also dealt with navigation and announced in his Stratioticos several books in preparation on navigation, fortress construction, architecture and ballistics. In 1573 he published a paper on the supernova SN 1572 , which Tycho Brahe had also observed in 1572, and thus cemented his reputation as an observing astronomer. The book was dedicated to Lord Burghley . In order to observe the “new star”, John Dee constructed a large angle measuring instrument for him. In 1579 he wrote in Stratioticos that he was working on a commentary on De Revolutionibus by Copernicus.

Fonts

  • with Leonard Diggs: Pantometria, 1571 (on land surveying and map making, the section on geometric solids is by Thomas Digges)
  • Alae seu scalae mathematicae, 1573
  • Stratioticos, 1579

literature

  • Joy B. Easton: Digges, Thomas . In: Charles Coulston Gillispie (Ed.): Dictionary of Scientific Biography . tape 4 : Richard Dedekind - Firmicus Maternus . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1971, p. 97-98 .
  • FR Johnson: The Influence of Thomas Digges on the Progress of Modern Astronomy in 16th Century Englsnd, Osiris, Volume 1, 1936, pp. 390-410.
  • FR Johnson, SV Larkey: Thomas Digges, the Copernican System and the idea of ​​Infinity of the Universe in 1576, Huntington Library Bulletin 1934, pp. 69-117.
  • LD Patterson: Leonard and Thomas Digges. Biographical Notes, Isis, Volume 42, 1951, pp. 120-121.
  • LD Patterson: The Date of Birth of Thomas Digges, Isis, Volume 43, 1952, pp. 124-125.
  • Michael Weichenhan: «Ergo perit coelum ...» The supernova of 1572 and the overcoming of Aristotelian cosmology. Stuttgart 2004, pp. 580–591 ( partly online @ books.google.de)
  • Harry Nussbaumer: Revolution in the sky: how the Copernican turn changed astronomy. Zurich 2011, pp. 90–93 with illus- tration of the original page and description

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography of his father in the Galileo Project
  2. ^ Richard Westfall in the Galileo Project on Digges
  3. ↑ Barbara Hunfeld: The view into space: Pt. 12: Reflections on the cosmos of signs in Brockes, Jean Paul, Goethe and Stifter , pages 31–32. Verlag Niemeyer, Tübingen 2004. Book preview on Google .
  4. ↑ Drake, Copernicanism in Kepler, Bruno and Galilei, Vistas in Astronomy, Volume 17, 1975, pp. 177-192.
  5. ^ Maurice Daumas: Scientific Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries and Their Makers . Portman Books, London 1989. ISBN 978-0-7134-0727-3
personal data
SURNAME Digges, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English cosmographer
DATE OF BIRTH 1546
PLACE OF BIRTH Wootton (Kent) , England
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1595
Place of death London