Nicole Oresme and the Kinematics of Circular Motion. University of Wisconsin Publications in Medieval Science.

Altersgem�sehr guter Zustand / very good condition for age - Historians now recognize Nicole Oresme as one of the most seminal, and certainly pivotal, thinkers in the development of late medieval science. His treatises on diverse aspects of science are extensive; for a precise knowledge of Oresme�s philosophy and a true measure of his inventiveness it is necessary that scholars have available critical editions of his works. This need continues to be met in the University of Wisconsin Publications in Medieval Science, which now offers four books concerned with the works of Oresme. In the current volume, Edward Grant provides the first English translation and printed Latin text established from extant manuscripts of Oresme�s highly original treatise, Tractatus de commensurabilitate vel incommensurabilitate motuum celi. -- Under the aegis of learned men trained at the prestigious Universities of Oxford and Paris, the fourteenth century became the most fruitful period in the Middle Ages for the advancement of science. Aristotelian doctrines, long secure, were evaluated and often replaced with fresh suppositions. Oresme ( ca. 1323-1382 ) , cleric, schoolman, and advisor to Charles V, King of France, played a crucial role in this growth of scientific ideas�proposing cogent arguments for the possibility of the earth�s rotation almost one hundred and fifty years in advance of Copernicus. -- Oresme was an ardent and longtime opponent of astrology; this treatise is an expansion and revision of his earlier work, Ad pauca respicientes. Oresme concluded that a demonstration of the probable incommensurability of celestial bodies would lessen the effect of astrologers� claims. Although a few predecessors were concerned as well with hypothetical investigations on the commensurability and incommensurability of circular and celestial motions, Oresme, in the De commensurabilitate, became the first to compose a separate work on the subject and to apply the results of the propositions against the predictions of astrologers. -- The treatise is composed of a prologue and three parts. The first two parts, highly mathematical in content, attempt to derive various consequences from the motions of two or more bodies whose speeds are first assumed to be commensurable and then incommensurable. Oresme concludes the work within the framework of a dream - Apollo, the Judge, presides over a debate between the personifications of Arithmetic and Geometry, who argue whether the celestial motions are commensurable ( Arithmetic ) or incommensurable ( Geometry ) . Although the dream is terminated before a decision is reached, the reader has little doubt as to Oresme�s final judgment. -- Grant�s translation is marked by lucidity, and faithfulness to a difficult manuscript. As well as furnishing the reader with a cogent text ( Latin and English on parallel pages ) , Grant fully explicates Oresme�s ideas and traces their often baffling sources. ISBN 9780299058302