Bartholomaeus Pitiscus

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Front Cover of the 1612 edition of Trigonometriæ sive de dimensione triangulorum libri quinque.

Bartholomaeus Pitiscus (also Barthélemy or Bartholomeo; August 24, 1561 – August 24, 1613) was a 16th-century German trigonometrist, astronomer and theologian who first coined the word trigonometry.

Biography

Pitiscus was born to poor parents in Grünberg (now Zielona Góra, Poland), then part of the Duchy of Glogau/Głogów, one of the Habsburg-ruled Duchies of Silesia.

He studied theology in

Roman Catholic Church
.

Pitiscus died in

lunar crater Pitiscus
is named after him.

The classical scholar Samuel Pitiscus (1637–1727) was his nephew.

Mathematics

Pitiscus achieved fame with his influential work, Trigonometria: sive de solutione triangulorum tractatus brevis et perspicuus (Trigonometry: A short and clear treatise on the solution of triangles) which was printed as an appendix to work of

plane and spherical trigonometry
.

A standalone edition called Trigonometriæ sive de dimensione triangulorum libri quinque (Five books on trigonometry or the dimensions of triangles) was published in 1608 which included trigonometric tables with another, improved, edition being published in 1612.[2]

Pitiscus also published Thesaurus mathematicus[3] (1613) in which he improved the trigonometric tables of Georg Joachim Rheticus for whom he had previously helped publish an improved version of Opus palatinum de triangulis in 1607.[4]

The Decimal Point

Pitiscus is often credited with inventing the

decimal point
, the symbol separating integers from decimal fractions.

These are claimed to first appear in his 1608 edition of Trigonometria in the added trigonometric tables[5] and can also be found in the 1612 edition.[6] However, others argue that the use of the '.' symbol only constitute a way of grouping numbers and that the mixed use of decimal points and fractions as well as multiple decimal points do not correspond to current use.[4][7] Similar usage of the symbol is found in Thesaurus mathematicus.

The decimal place was later used in its modern context by John Napier in Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio.

Works

  • Trigonometriae sive De dimensione triangulorum (in Latin). Frankfurt am Main. 1612. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)
  • Thesaurus mathematicus. 1613

Notes

  1. ^ Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries
  2. ^ Denis Roegel. A reconstruction of the tables of Pitiscus’ Thesaurus Mathematicus (1613). [Research Report] 2010. ffinria-00543933v1
  3. ^ Rheticus, Georg Joachim (1513). Thesaurus mathematicus: sive: canon sinuum ad radium I.00000.00000.00000 et ad dena quaeque scrupula secunda quadrantis: una cum sinibus primi et postremi gradus, ad eundem radium, et ad singula scrupula quadrantis ...
  4. ^ a b Reconstruction of Pitiscus' tables.
  5. PMID 17799096
    .
  6. ^ "Mets Viewer". gutenberg.beic.it. Retrieved 2023-06-07.
  7. doi:10.1484/J.arch.3.119
    – via BrepolsOnline.

References

External links
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