Rheticus, Georg Joachim von Lauchen (Georg Joachim Iserin,
Georg Joachim de Porris)(1514–74) German Renaissance
man of science whose fields of study are typical of the time,
including mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, medicine,
alchemy, and theology. Rheticus was educated by his father, a
physician, until the age of 14, at which time his father was
beheaded for sorcery, probably related to his medical practice.
He received his master’s degree from the University of
Wittenberg at the age of 22, and immediately began teaching
arithmetic and geometry. His love for geometry ultimately led
to spending time with Copernicus in 1539, and Rheticus is
known as the catalyst for getting Copernicus’s work into the
world. He obtained funding for publishing Narratio Prima,the
full title of which was the First r eport to Johann Schoner on
the Books of the Revolutions of the Learned Gentleman and
Distinguished Mathematician, the Reverend Doctor Nicolaus
Copernicus of Torun, Canon of Warmia,and also was
responsible for funding the printing of the famous De
Revolutionibus,to which Rheticus added some trigonometry
tables. It was the computation and development of these tables
of sines and cosines, using RATIOs in RIGHT TRIANGLEs rather
than dealing with lengths of CHORDs in CIRCLEs, as was
previously done by CLAUDIUS PTOLEMYand REGIOMONTANUS,
which earned Rheticus his place in mathematical history. Six
years later, Rheticus took up theology, then returned to
medicine and spent the last 20 years of his life as a physician.Riemann, Bernhard (Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann)
(1826–66) German mathematician considered one of the most
brilliant mathematicians of his time, Riemann was a sickly
child educated at home by his father until the age of 10, and
remained sick most of his life. His work, mostly in the field of
geometry, is credited as leading others to making great
discoveries in algebra while they worked on trying to prove his
many theories. He is acknowledged most for his original ideas.
Among the topics of his work are the general theory of
functions of complex VARIABLEs, a famous dissertation on the
hypotheses that lie as the foundation of geometry, elliptic
function, primes, Abelian functions, and linear differential
EQUATIONs. He is considered to have been ahead of his time inBIOGRAPHIES Rheticus – Riemann
BIOGRAPHIES Rheticus – Riemann
GeorgFriedrich Bernhard
Riemann (Courtesy of AIP
Emilio Segrè Visual Archives,
T.J.J. See Collection)