Pedro Nunes

From Hispanopedia
Pedro Nunes
For other uses, see Pedro Núñez (disambiguation).

Pedro Nunes (Alcácer do Sal, Portugal, 1502 – Coimbra, August 1, 1578),[1][2] also known by his Latin name Petrus Nonius Salaciensis,[2] was a Portuguese mathematician, astronomer and geographer, one of the most important of the 16th century.

He was also known as Pedro Núñez and Pedro Nonnius at the University of Salamanca, where he taught.

Biography

Possibly of Jewish origin,[3][4] he achieved great renown and prestige as a scientist.

He studied Languages, Philosophy, Medicine and Mathematics in Lisbon and later at the University of Salamanca, and made important contributions to mathematics, astronomy and navigation.

He graduated in Salamanca in 1523, the year in which he also married the Spaniard Guiomar Areas.[2]

He returned to Lisbon in 1527 and began teaching Prince Louis, the brother of King John III, and the explorer Martim Afonso de Sousa.

There he was appointed Royal Cosmographer in 1529[2] and later joined the University of Lisbon as professor of philosophy in 1530. There he began to work as a professor of mathematics.

As a professor of mathematics he returned to the University of Salamanca, where he taught between 1538 and 1544, the year in which he became professor of mathematics at the University of Coimbra. At that time, this was a new discipline at that Portuguese institution, having been created with the aim of providing the technical instruction necessary for navigation, which had become a vital matter in Portugal at that time. Mathematics became an independent subject in 1544.

All this without abandoning his post as cosmographer at the Portuguese court, where he attained the office of Chief Cosmographer in 1547, which he would hold until his death in 1578.

In 1534 he discovered the solution of the shortest twilight, solving the problem of determining the minimum twilight for each place on the surface of the earth. This happened two centuries before such a solution was presented by the Swiss mathematicians Johann Bernoulli and Jacob Bernoulli.

Original nonius of Pedro Nunes.
Modern version of the nonius mounted on a caliper.

Pedro Nunes invented the nonius (whose name comes from Nonnius), a device for measuring lengths that made it possible, with the help of an astrolabe, to measure fractions of a degree of very small angles not indicated on the scale of astronomical and topographic instruments. The Dictionary of the Real Academia defines this device as Nonius (or nonio): An auxiliary piece that is superimposed on a graduated scale and makes it possible to increase the precision of its measurement by one decimal digit.[5]

In his important Treatise on Navigation (1546) he published an important discovery with great geometric implications: the loxodromic curve. It had previously been believed that, traveling over the earth's surface on a fixed course, that is, forming a constant angle with the meridian, the line traveled was a great circle or, in other words, that a ship following this course would theoretically go around the world, returning to its point of departure. Nunes was the first to point out the falsity of this deeply rooted concept, rigorously demonstrating that, far from this happening, the curve traveled gradually approaches the pole, around which it makes infinite turns without ever reaching it; or, put in technical language, it has the pole as an asymptotic point. German sailors long designated it by the name rumbo that Nonnius had given it, until in the 17th century it received its current name of loxodromic curve.

He was a contemporary and friend of the mathematician Christopher Clavius, and maintained a copious epistolary correspondence with him.

Pedro Nunes died in Coimbra in 1578.

Works

He wrote works in sciences such as astronomy, algebra and geography:

  • De crepusculis liber unus (Lisbon, 1542);
  • De arte atque ratione navigandi (Coimbra, 1546);
  • Tratado da sphera com a theorica do sol e da lau e o primeiro livro da geographia de Claudio Ptolomeo Alexandrino (Lisbon, 1537);
  • De erratis Orontii Finei (Coimbra, 1546);
  • Annotatio in extrema verba capitis de climatibis (Cologne, 1566);
  • Livro de algebra em arithmetica e geometría (Antwerp, 1567)—written during his stay in Salamanca[6]—;
  • Annotações á Mechanica de Aristoteles e ás theoricas dos planetas de Purbachio com a arte de Navegar (Coimbra, 1578).

His complete works were published under the title Petri Nonii Opera (Basel, 1592).

Pedro Nunes also alluded to other works written by him, which are today considered lost:

  • Tratado sobre os Triângulos Esféricos;
  • Anotação à Mecânica de Aristóteles;
  • De Ortu et Occasu Signorum;
  • De Astrolabio Opus Demonstratiuum;
  • De Planisphærio Geometrico;
  • De Proportione in Quintum Euclidis;
  • De Globo Delineando ad Nauigandi Artem.[1]

He did not write only about his mathematical and scientific studies, since he also left notes about his life, as well as a collection of Greek and Latin poems, and some religious notes that he composed during his last years.

Bibliography of the author

Tratado da Sphera, 1537
  • Tratado da sphera com a Theorica do Sol e da Lua (Treatise on the sphere with theories on the Sun and the Moon), (Lisbon, 1537). The only work by Pedro Nunes (written "Pero Nunez" on the title page) published in Portuguese. It includes:[7]
    • Translation of the Tractatus de Sphaera by Johannes de Sacrobosco
    • Translation of the Theoricae novae planetarum by Georg Purbach
    • Translation of the first book of the Geography by Ptolemy
    • Tratado sobre certas dúvidas da navegação (Treatise on certain doubts of the time about maritime navigation)
    • Tratado em defesa da carta de marear (Treatise on maritime navigation)
  • De crepusculis liber unus (Lisbon, 1542).
  • De erratis Orontii Finei (On the errors of Orontius Fineus), (1546).
  • Petri Nonii Salaciensis Opera, (Basel, 1566 and 1592).
  • Livro de algebra em arithmetica e geometría (Antwerp, 1567).
  • An expanded, corrected re-edition of De arte adque ratione navigandi in 1573.
  • It is likely that he also carried out an annotated translation of Vitruvius, De Architectura.[1]

Eponymy

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 (In Portuguese.) Biografía Pedro Nunes. Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 (In English.) «Pedro Nunes Salaciense.» School of Mathematics and Statistics. University of St Andrews. Accessed June 19, 2016.
  3. ↑ Aldo Mieli, Desiderio Papp, José Babini. Panorama general de historia de la ciencia: La ciencia del renacimiento: matemática y ciencias naturales (in español) (1952 ed.). Espasa-Calpe. pp. 41 de 246.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ↑ Curiously, the well-documented page of the University of Lisbon does not mention his Jewish origin: Bruno Almeida and Henrique Leitão (2009). "Mathematics, Cosmography and Nautical Science in the 16th century". Centre for the History of Sciences, Lisbon University. Retrieved April 24, 2017.
  5. ↑ Real Academia Española. «Nonius». Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish).
  6. ↑ Rodríguez-San Pedro Bezares, Luis Enrique. Historia de la Universidad de Salamanca. Volumen III: Saberes y confluencias, p. 418. Universidad de Salamanca, 2006. On Google Books. Accessed June 19, 2016.
  7. ↑ Tratado da Esfera
  8. ↑ "Nonius". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS.
  9. ↑ Web de jpl. "(5313) Nunes".
Retrieved from "https://en.hispanopedia.com/index.php?title=Pedro_Nunes&oldid=2222"