Ulm comet dispute
The Ulm comet dispute of 1618 was a scientific dispute in Ulm between the mathematician and engineer Johannes Faulhaber (1580-1635), known as the "German Archimedes ", and the doctor and philosopher Johann Remmelin (1583-1632) on the one hand and the director of the Ulm high school Johann Baptist Hebenstreit († 1638), the pastor Zimprecht (Simpert) Wehe and the mathematician Johann Krafft on the other side.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War , the question was whether the comets that appeared in the sky in that year 1618 (including the C / 1618 W1 discovered by Johannes Kepler ) were “wonderful signs” of the wrath of God and announced his punishment, or whether they were natural phenomena without any influence on war and death, hunger and misery.
On October 18, 1619, a corresponding colloquium of some scientists took place in Ulm to clarify the disputes , including the mathematician René Descartes (1596–1650). It is said that this colloquium “ended in a thoroughly conciliatory way ... with the promise to respect each other as Christian brothers in the future ” , which can be interpreted as a draw.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kurt Hawlitschek: Die Deutschlandreise des René Descartes , in: Reports on the history of science 25 (4), 2002. pp. 235–252, here p. 242.
literature
- Ivo Schneider: God's miracle or a completely natural appearance. The comet war of 1618 . In: Back then . Volume 12, 1994, pp. 32-39.
Web links
- Illustration by Frans Hogenberg from 1618: Actual index, this comet, which appeared in the year sixteen hundred and eighteen: which is running or moving through the signs of the 8th heaven, alhie is presented in front of the eyes ( digitized version )