"Copernicus First Scientific Work'
- Gingerich
COPERNICUS, Nicolaus. De Lateribus et angulis Triangulorum, tum planorum rectilineorum tum Sphaericorum, libellus eruditissimus & utilissimus, cum ad plerasque Ptolemaei demonstrationes intelligendas, tam vero ad alia multa... Wittenberg, Johannes Lufft, 1542.
4to. [21 x 15.5 cm],, (30) ff., including title with woodcut border. Contemporary annotations in margins of 2 leaves. Bound in modern morocco a l?antique, covers triple-ruled with spine in 6 compartments elaborately gilt, with gilt title label. Contemporary annotations in margin of a handful of leaves. Even toning throughout, but a fresh, unwashed copy, with broad margins, very good.
$350,000 Rare first edition of Copernicus' first scientific work, containing the first appearance of any part of the text of De Revolutionibus as well as Rheticus? first published trigonometric tables. The work is preceded by Copernicus' translation of Theophylact Simocatta (Cracow 1509), and would be succeeded by De Revolutionibus the following year, to which it provides the trigonometrical section explaining the mathematical basis on which the calculations in that great work are based. Although the math of the present work was less daunting than that of De Revolutionibus, this is the first annotated copy of the present work we have ever encountered.
"When Rheticus returned to Wittenberg for the opening of the winter semester, he was elected dean of the liberal arts faculty on 18 October 1541. In early 1542 he separately published-under the title of De lateribus et angulis triangulorum-the section on plane and spherical trigonometry in Copernicus' De revolutionibus. To this brief discussion of the Sides and Angles of Triangles Rheticus added a table of half-chords subtended in a circle. Such a half-chord is actually a sine, although both Copernicus and Rheticus studiously avoided the term. The table of sines in the Sides and Angles of Triangles differs from the corresponding table in De revolutionibus by increasing the length of the radius from one hundred thousand to ten million and by diminishing the interval of the central angle from 10' to 1'. Furthermore, by indicating the complementary angle at the foot of the columns and at the right-hand side of the page, the 1542 table became the first to give the cosine directly, although that term is not mentioned. Rheticus did not ascribe the authorship of this table to Copernicus nor, presumably out of modesty, to himself. Nevertheless, the table was undoubtedly his doing. His independent place in the history of mathematics is due precisely to his computation of innovative and monumental trigonometrical tables" (DSB XI.396).
In an appendix to his Copernicus census, Gingerich lists the following US copies: Lilly, Harvard, Duke, Cornell, Oklahoma, LC, Dibner Library (Smithsonian), Williams College, and a private copy formerly in the collection of Roman Vishniac. OCLC adds no new copies.
* * Zinner 1795; Gingerich, Science in the Age of Copernicus, 22; Macclesfield Sale Part I #249
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