Mathematical Disquisitions - by Christopher M Graney (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo offers a new English translation of the 1614 Disquisitiones Mathematicae, which Johann Georg Locher wrote under the guidance of the German Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner. The booklet, an anti-Copernican astronomical work, is of interest in large part because Galileo Galilei, who came into conflict with Scheiner over the discovery of sunspots, devoted numerous pages within his famous 1632 Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems--Ptolemaic and Copernican to ridiculing Disquisitiones. The brief text (the original was approximately one hundred pages) is heavily illustrated with dozens of original figures, making it an accessible example of "geocentric astronomy in the wake of the telescope."

Review Quotes

"Graney is doing sterling work in adjusting the very distorted view of the astronomical system in the first half of the seventeenth century and anybody, who is seriously interested in learning the true facts of the discussion, should definitely read his latest contribution." --The Renaissance Mathematicus

"In this accessible and engaging translation, Graney makes a strong case for the value of studying the anti-Copernicans. . . The recovery of Locher's treatise demonstrates that 'Science's history matters' because it shows that true and honest debates within the scientific community have been part of the practice of modern science since its inception." --Seventeenth-Century News

"There is much here for Professor Graney's intended student audience as well as for other interested readers. His efforts will make the understanding of this Copernican debate richer for all." --Renaissance Quarterly

"With this translation, Graney makes available to a wider range of readers Locher's ideas in a manner unmediated by the thoughts or the agenda of Galileo. It allows them to explore and assess on their own merits the arguments advanced by critics of Copernicanism in the early seventeenth century. This in turn makes it possible to understand contemporary cosmological debates in new ways." -- European History Quarterly

About the Author

Christopher M. Graney is professor of physics and astromony at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015).