Scheiner
NAME: Scheiner, Christoph
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Mathematician who was one of the first to see sunspots (1611).
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 25 July 1573, at Wald, near Mindelheim, Swabia
[southwest Germany]
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 18 June 1650, in Neisse, Silesia [now Nysa,
Poland]. Aged 76
DISCIPLINE: Astronomer
FIELD: Astronomy
LANGUAGE: German
PARENTS: Unknown
SIBLINGS: Unknown
SPOUSE: None
CHILDREN: None
EDUCATION: Augsburg Latin School; Jesuit College, Landsberg; University of
Ingolstadt, 1600-03
MAJOR WORK: 'Rosa Ursina', 1630
LIFE AND TIMES:
Early in his career Scheiner became an expert on the mathematics of sundials and also invented a pantograph (a device for copying and drawings to a different scale).
In 1610, hearing about Galileo's discoveries with the telescope, he immediately built a good telescope to check Galileo's discoveries for himself, and turned his attention to the Sun, where, in March or April 1611 from the balcony of the College of Rome, using a <used> camera obscura* he identified spots on the disc of the Sun.
Scheiner was advised by his religious superiors to publish his findings under a pseudonym in case he was mistaken, and in early 1612 Scheiner's notes were printed in Augsburg as: 'Three Letters on Solar Spots' . Copies were also sent to <sent observation data to> Galileo* and <sent observation data to> Kepler*.
Scheiner theorized that sunspots were shadows caused by moons of the Sun. A second series of three notes in the form of letters was published in late 1612, under the title 'A More Accurate Disquisition Concerning Solar Spots and Stars orbiting Jupiter', in which Scheiner restated his argument that sunspots were caused by moons, discussing their individual motion and period of revolution, and stating that Jupiter had more moons than the four discovered by Galileo. Scheiner also correctly concluded that Venus and Mercury revolve around the Sun.
In Ingoldstadt, Scheiner taught mathematics and organized public debates (on current issues in astronomy), two of which he recorded and published. In the first: 'Disquisitiones mathematicae de controversis et novitatibus astronomicis' (1614), Scheiner upheld the traditional view that the Earth is at rest at the centre of the universe, but praised Galileo for his discovery of the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter.
In 1616 Scheiner left Ingolstadt to become Maximilian's adviser at the court at Innsbruck, and the following year he was ordained as a priest. During the following years he performed several experiments on the physiology of the eye, and in 1619 he showed that the retina is the organ of vision.
In 1624 Scheiner set out on a journey to Spain with Maximilian, but, following the Archduke’s death at Genoa, he went on to Rome. Scheiner remained in Rome for the next eight years, where he was occupied with administrative affairs, but continued his systematic observation of the Sun at the Gregorian Observatory.
From this research came his major work, the 'Rosa Ursina Sive Sol', which became the standard work on sunspots for more than a century. Scheiner devoted the first book of 'Rosa Ursina' to an attack on Galileo.
Scheiner accepted Galileo's theory that sunspots were on the Sun's surface or in its atmosphere. Following the movement of the sunspots, he also calculated the rotation times of the Sun - i.e. about 25 days near the equator and 31 days near the poles - and from this calculated the equator and rotation axis of the Sun, and discovered solar flares.
In 1633 Scheiner returned North, where he spent the rest of his life first in Vienna (1633-39) and then in Neisse.
ASSESSMENT: A major Jesuit astronomer who verified much of what Galileo said.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His work related to that of <work related to> Gassendi*
ONELINER: Christoph Scheiner, who confirmed Galileo’s discovery of sunspots
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
EB, DSB
Shea, William R. Shea, Galileo's Intellectual Revolution; Middle Period (1610-1632), New York: Science History Publications, 1972