Mathematician:Johannes Müller von Königsberg
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Mathematician
Better known under his Latinized name (Johannes Müller) Regiomontanus: both surnames mean King's mountain.
German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, translator, instrument maker and Catholic bishop.
Pupil of Georg von Peuerbach, whose uncompleted work he continued.
Set up a printing press at Nuremberg in $\text {1471}$ – $\text {1472}$ for printing scientific works.
First publisher of such scientific literature.
Became internationally famous within his own lifetime.
Nationality
Dutch, of German origin
History
- Born: 6 June 1436 in Unfinden (near Königsberg), Lower Franconia (now in Bayern, Germany)
- 1447: Joined University of Leipzig to study dialectics
- 14 April 1450: Entered the University of Vienna to become pupil of Georg von Peuerbach
- 16 January 1452: Awarded a baccalaureate
- 1457: Awarded a Master's Degree (on reaching required age of 21)
- 11 November 1457: Appointed to the Arts Faculty of the University of Vienna to study under Peuerbach
- 1458: Delivered course on perspective
- 1460: Delivered course on Euclid
- 1461: Delivered course on Virgil's Bucolics
- 1461: Took over the work to complete Epytoma in Almagesti Ptolemei started by Peuerbach
- 20 November 1461: Travelled to Italy under patronage with Cardinal Bessarion
- 1461 to 1465: Based in Rome as a member of Bessarion's extended household
- Summer 1462: At Viterbo with Bessarion
- Autumn 1462: Accompanied Bessarion as far as Venice
- 1462: found an incomplete copy of Diophantus's Arithmetica
- 5 July 1463: Left Rome
- Spring 1464: Lectured at the University of Padua in the Venetian Republic
- 21 April 1464: Observed the total eclipse of the moon
- August 1464: Returned to Rome after death of the Pope Pius II
- 19 June 1465: Made an observation at Viterbo
- 1467: In Hungary, having accepted an appointment from the King to the Royal Library in Buda
- c. 1471: Moved to Nuremberg
- 1471-1472: in he set up a printing press in his own house in Nuremberg
- 1476: summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to advise on calendar reform
- Died: 6 July 1476 in Rome, Italy of unknown causes (probably plague, but rumoured to have been poisoned)
Theorems
Results named for Johannes Müller von Königsberg can be found here.
Publications
- 1462: Epytoma in Almagesti Ptolemei (begun by Georg von Peuerbach)
- 1463: a translation of Arithmetica by Diophantus (incomplete)
- 1464: De Triangulis Omnimodus, one of the first textbooks on trigonometry
- 1467: Tabulae directionum (Tables of Directions), a manual for calculating astrological houses
- 1474: Kalendarium
- 1474: Ephemerides
- 1544: Scripta
- Algorithmus Demonstratus
- Introductory Discourse on All the Mathematical Disciplines
- Theoricae novae Planetarum
- The Defence of Theon against George of Trebizond
Also known as
- Johann Müller
- Johannes Molitoris de Künigsperg (Molitoris is a Latin form of Müller)
- Johannes Germanus (Johann the German)
- Johannes Francus (Johannes from Franconia)
- Johann von Künigsperg (Johann from Königsberg)
- Joannes de Monte Regio (used by Gassendi in his biography)
- Ioannis de Regio Monte (used by himself on the title page of his De Triangulis Omnimodus)
- Regiomontus (possibly erroneously)
- At least one online source has Regionontanus, which is clearly erroneous.
Sources
- John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Johannes Müller von Königsberg": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
- 1991: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Geometry ... (previous) ... (next): A Chronological List Of Mathematicians
- 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Müller, Johann
- 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Regiomontanus, also known as Johann Müller (1436-76)
- 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Müller, Johann
- 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Regiomontanus, also known as Johann Müller (1436-76)
- 2008: Ian Stewart: Taming the Infinite ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $5$: Eternal Triangles: Early trigonometry
- 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Müller, Johann
- 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Regiomontanus (1436-76)