12 December 2023,
14h00
Adapting and accepting the European astronomical system: A study of the mistakes in the calculation of eclipses using th Western methods in the late Ming and early Qing China
Ji Chen
SYRTE PSL-Observatoire de Paris
European astronomy was used to reform the calendar with the assistance of the Jesuits in the late Ming China and became the official astronomical system in the early Qing dynasty. However, the process of widespread recognition and application of the Western astronomical methods was not smooth but full of obstacles. Taking the eclipse prediction, one of the focal points of attention at that time, as an entry point, this presentation will reveal the relevant historical details by discussing the mistakes that occurred in the calculation of eclipses by the Western methods. Firstly, the mistake in the process of predicting the solar eclipse in the 7th year of the Ming Chongzhen 崇祯 reign (1634) had a bad impact on the official adoption of the Western methods. Besides the reasons discussed by previous scholars, the serious consequences should be also related to the uncredible explanation given by the Jesuits for the cause of this mistake. Secondly, the mistakes in the calculation of eclipses by the Western methods during the Chongzhen reign (r. 1628-1644) were not isolated incidents. Their occurrence was inseparable from human factors such as the carelessness. But fundamentally speaking, the root cause actually laid in the adoption of Chinese and Western astronomical systems in eclipse prediction results and calculation processes, respectively. Until the late period of Qing Kangxi 康熙 reign (r. 1662-1722), with the gradual application of the Western astronomical systems in both eclipse calculation processes and prediction results, as well as the improvement of eclipse calculation processes to reduce the influence of human factors, the mistakes in eclipse calculations by the Western methods were basically eliminated or almost completely avoided.
16 January 2024,
14h00
L'affaire Fénon
Christophe Gamez
AHP-PReST, Université de Lorraine
Dans une volonté politique de décentralisation de l’astronomie française, le 11 mars 1878, l’observatoire astronomique, météorologique et chronométrique de Besançon est créé. Le premier directeur Louis-Jules Gruey signe, en 1882-1883 deux contrats avec l’horloger Auguste Fénon pour la fourniture, sous deux années, d’une horloge sidérale et d’une pendule donnant un signal par jour synchronisant les pendules de la ville de Besançon afin de diffuser l’heure déterminée à l’observatoire. Mais ce qui semble tout tracé sur le papier va se compliquer jusqu'à faire appel à la loi...
16 January 2024,
15h30
Mise en valeur du patrimoine astronomique de l'observatoire de Besançon
Philippe Rousselot
Université de France-Comté, Observatoire de Besançon
L’observatoire de Besançon – maintenant intégré dans l’OSU THETA - fondé par décret en 1878 et inauguré en 1884, possède des instruments astronomiques et des bâtiments anciens dans un état de conservation très rare. Ce patrimoine bénéficie aujourd’hui de la protection d’un classement aux titre des Monuments Historiques. Il est également mis en valeur de différentes façons. Cet exposé présentera ce patrimoine ainsi que le travail actuellement fait pour le pérenniser et le mettre en valeur.
13 February 2024,
14h00
The Long Pre-History of Lalande’s Bibliographie astronomique
Giorgio Matteoli
Université de Turin
When Jérôme de Lalande published his Bibliographie astronomique in 1803, he stood at the apex of his career. As one of the most influent astronomers in Europe, he was well aware of the implicit power wielded by histories and bibliographies of a discipline such as astronomy, especially in an age when the production of such works remained relatively scarce – namely, that of presenting and organizing the past of the discipline by separating the chaff from the wheat to be fed to new generations of increasingly professionalized astronomers. Indeed, as Lalande himself recognizes in the preface to his work, it was the Ministry of Public Instruction who provided the means to carry out his enterprise; and that is why «mere erudition» and «completeness» were never his objectives, for they would have rendered his book a «simple waste of time». However, Lalande did not start accumulating data from scratch. He could rely on a long lineage of direct predecessor who had been accumulating bibliographical materials in the previous two centuries, within the same State-driven economy of astronomical knowledge. As I will show on the basis of recent archival research, it was Giovanni Domenico Cassini who, at the end of the XVII century, started organizing astronomical materials in his capacity of chief scientific administrator for the Parisian Academy of Sciences. Later, his pupil Joseph-Nicolas Delisle resumed this project from where it was left, putting it on an entirely new footing. He soon started to involve other scholars from all over Europe to help gathering the information he needed; sometimes, he even commissioned others (like the Wittenberg wolffian scholar Johann Friedrich Weidler) to complete some its parts. Even though Delisle’s work was ultimately left unaccomplished, his pupil Lalande took it up once again and extensively deployed it in compiling his Bibliographie, thereby embedding it in the wider structure of the Ancient Régime’s political epistemology of astronomy.
12 March 2024,
14h00
« L’équilibre harmonique » du service hydrographique français : collecter, compiler, utiliser et corriger l’information hydrographique, 1720-1940
Nathan Godet
Laboratoire Criham (Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires en Histoire, Histoire de l’Art et Musicologie)
Fondé à Paris, en novembre 1720, le Dépôt des cartes, plans, journaux et mémoires concernant la navigation incarne la volonté du pouvoir de rendre utile l’ensemble des documents produits par les navigateurs sur la connaissance des mers et des littoraux. Rapidement, l’établissement devient un maillon essentiel dans la collecte, la production et la diffusion d’une information géographique et hydrographique, notamment par le biais de cartes élaborées en soutien à la navigation. Evoluant dans un paysage savant pourtant préexistant à ses activités (l’Académie royale des Sciences et l’Observatoire de Paris créés respectivement en 1666 et 1667 ou plus localement l’administration des ports du royaume), le Dépôt parisien s’est progressivement imposé comme l’établissement officiel dans la confection, la diffusion et la transmission des savoirs hydrographiques et poursuivait déjà, au 18ème siècle, les mêmes objectifs que remplit aujourd’hui son digne successeur, le Service hydrographique et océanographique de la Marine (Shom), dans un même « équilibre harmonique » que revendiquait en 1888 l’ingénieur hydrographe Anatole Bouquet de la Grye (1827-1909). Riche d’une histoire de plus de 300 ans, il s’agit dès lors ici de s’intéresser aux moyens mis en œuvre par les acteurs du Dépôt pour construire et diffuser une information hydrographique à caractère officiel en posant quelques balises tout au long de cette riche histoire afin de tenter de répondre à cette question : Quelle a été la capacité d'une institution à "rebattre les cartes", à la fois dans la collecte des données nécessaires à la construction des cartes hydrographiques et dans la capacité à corriger une information hydrographique préalablement établie ?
12 March 2024,
15h30
TBA
Olivier Sauzereau
CFV Nantes
TBA
9 April 2024,
14h00
TBA
Alexandre Guilbaud
IMJ-PRG, Sorbonne Université
TBA
14 May 2024,
14h00
Rethinking the Historiography of Ottoman Astronomy: Circumstantial versus Direct Connections
Gaye Danışan
Department of the History of Science at Istanbul University, Türkiye
An increasing interest in adopting a multi-perspective methodology in the historiography of science, which involves considering circumstantial connections alongside direct ones, enables a more comprehensive exploration of various facets of knowledge flows within a historical context and opens up new avenues for research. This trend empowers us to pose new and thought-provoking questions that have the potential to reshape our understanding of the historiography of Ottoman astronomy. From this motivation, the paper seeks to elucidate the significance of circumstantial connections within the Ottoman context, particularly emphasising nautical astronomy, calendars, astronomical instruments, and volvelles. Its ultimate goal is to offer a more comprehensive understanding of how knowledge in these areas was circulated and adapted over time within Ottoman society. Focusing on circumstantial connections and employing a comparative case study approach, this research aims to shed light on the intricate dynamics of astronomical knowledge dissemination and assimilation in the Ottoman World during the 16th to 18th centuries.
11 June 2024,
14h00
Theodore Metochites and the Byzantine study of Ptolemy in the 14th century
Christine Roughan
Princeton University
In the beginning of the fourteenth century the Byzantine scholar and statesman Theodore Metochites (1270–1332) embarked upon a project to produce an epitome of Ptolemy’s Almagest. His resulting work, the Stoicheiosis astronomike, does not draw on any of the more recent astronomical parameters that had already entered Greek circulation from Arabic and Persian sources, a fact which stands out further when juxtaposed with Metochites’ statement that his teacher, Manuel Bryennios, had learned astronomy from a man who had come from Persia. Nevertheless, Metochites’ ambition to produce a text on Ptolemy that was accessible to students – and the course of study which he embarked upon to accomplish this – has resonances with didactic approaches to Ptolemy that were current in the neighboring Islamicate world. This presentation will explore the role of the Stoicheiosis astronomike in the wider revival of astronomical study during the Palaiologan Renaissance, along with how this work’s goals compare to those of Arabic editions of the Almagest produced two generations earlier.
11 June 2024,
15h30
Retrieving Astronomical Knowledge from Byzantine Harmonical reflections
Anne Weddigen
postdoctorante ANR VHS, UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée
The first half of the 14th c. CE was a time of great intellectual life in Byzantium, especially when it comes to the scientific disciplines of the Quadrivium. Although we are still missing important pieces of information, we are able to put some pieces of the puzzle together to gain some insight into the practices of teaching and learning mathematical sciences, especially those of astronomy and musical theory. Some of the most prominent scholars of this time happen to be linked by a probable or certain teacher-student relationship, and they all studied both disciplines : Georgios Pachymeres, Manuel Bryennios, Theodoros Metochites and Nicephoros Gregoras. This paper aims at providing first an overview of the extant texts and testimonies regarding these four scholars, their teaching and their discussions of astronomy and harmonics. Furthermore, I wish to present how astronomical knowledge, and perhaps debates, were incorporated into the Harmonica of Manuel Bryennios, and to contrast his writing with those of his fellow scholars.
11 January 2022,
14h00
Big Data in Medieval Europe : Computing Daily Planetary Positions for Multiple Years
Richard Kremer
Dartmouth College
Computation of long series of true planetary positions at regular time intervals (e.g., days) or consecutive eclipses has long been a central task of mathematical astronomy, from the Babylonian goal-year texts (500 BCE) through Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Latin astronomy and continuing into the modern period with the national editions of astronomical almanacs prepared by the Nautical Almanac Office of Great Britain, French Bureau des longitudes or the US Naval Observatory. The first printed book of numerical data was a massive daily ephemerides for the years 1475-1506, published in 1474 in Nuremberg. How did medieval astronomers compute hundreds of thousands of positions to a precision of arcminutes ? How were these results copied and transmitted ? Who needed such numerical data ? This paper will explore the first wave of “Big Data” to sweep across Europe in the 14-15th centuries.
11 January 2022,
15h30
Connaissance des temps et Nautical Almanac, « bréviaires » des astronomes et des marins. Une histoire parallèle de deux grands projets scientifiques parfois coopératifs, parfois concurrentiels (1760-1914)
Guy Boistel
Centre François Viète
Cet exposé s’attache à envisager une histoire parallèle des deux grandes fameuses éphémérides astronomiques qui font les beaux-jours des astronomes et des marins, des années 1760 à la fin du XIXe siècle. On s’intéresse ici plus particulièrement aux projets scientifiques qui se développent avec Lalande en France et Maskelyne en Angleterre au début des années 1760. L’exposé s’attache à tenter d’appréhender la nature de la relative coopération qui se met en place entre les deux directions des éphémérides dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle et qui se traduit par des passerelles et emprunts mutuels entre les deux publications tout au long du XIXe siècle, jusqu’à l’internationalisation des éphémérides qui se met progressivement en place à partir du début du XXe siècle.
8 February 2022,
14h00
L’astronome de la place du peuple : discours et pratique scientifique d’un ouvrier de Saint-Étienne, 1873-1895
David Aubin
IMJ, Sorbonne Université
En exploitant une source exceptionnelle, une collection d’environ 200 billets envoyés par un ouvrier-astronome aux journaux de Saint-Étienne entre 1873 et 1895, nous tenterons de saisir le sens d’une pratique scientifique populaire et de la remettre en contexte en examinant d’autres cas similaires moins bien documentés. Les origines rurales de cet astronome qui prendra le nom de Léger-Vergniaud et son apprentissage de l’astronomie à Paris seront examinés. On essaiera de resituer son identité par rapport à celles du charlatan et de l’amateur. Une étude fine de la culture matérielle et des pratiques d’observation de Léger-Vergniaud, notamment en ce qui concerne les comètes, permettront de mettre en lumière les processus d’hybridation des savoirs en jeu dans ces écrits, bien loin d’une simple diffusion des connaissances.
15 March 2022,
14h00
Réseaux et politique en astronomie : Eginitis, directeur de l’Observatoire d’Athènes de 1890 à 1934 et l’Observatoire de Paris
Efthymios Nicolaidis
Fondation Nationale de Recherche Hellénique, Athènes
Démétrius Eginitis, directeur de l’Observatoire d’Athènes pendant 44 ans, fut élève-astronome à l’Observatoire de Paris pendant la direction de l’amiral Mouchez. Pendant toute sa longue carrière, il resta en étroit contact avec l’Observatoire de Paris et la France. Il renouvela l’équipement de l’Observatoire d’Athènes en achetant des instruments français, il détermina sa longitude en collaboration avec l’Observatoire de Paris et le bureau des longitudes, il publia les Annales de l’Observatoire d’Athènes en français, il participa à des projets observationnels communs et il envoya des jeunes astronomes en France. En tant qu’homme politique (il fut ministre de l’éducation) il promut l’alliance France-Grèce.
12 April 2022,
14h00
ZODIAC : Ancient Astral Science in Transformation
Mathieu Ossendrijver
Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Wissensgeschichte des Altertums
The introduction of the zodiac triggered an ultimately global and enduring transformation of astral science and other realms of scholarship which took shape in Babylonia, Egypt and the Greco-Roman world between the 5th century BCE and the 3rd century CE. It was accompanied by three seminal innovations that are constitutive for modern astronomy and astrology : (1) a zodiacal turn – the zodiac became the central concept for interpreting, predicting, computing and representing celestial phenomena, (2) a mathematical turn – the emergence of mathematical methods that employ the zodiac for computing planetary, lunar and solar phenomena, and (3) a personal turn in astrology – the emergence of horoscopy and related forms of astrology that cater to private individuals as opposed to earlier forms that exclusively served rulers. While originating in Babylonia, these innovations were transformed through interactions with Egyptian, Greco-Roman and other ancient cultures of astral science, mathematics, religion, philosophy and iconography. The ZODIAC project aims to develop a new account of the emergence, spread and cross-cultural transformations of zodiacal astral science by addressing both textual and iconographic sources from different ancient cultures to reveal the strategies that fostered acceptance in new contexts.
10 May 2022,
14h00
Archives et collections patrimoniales de la Bibliothèque de l’Observatoire de Paris : des matériaux au service de l’histoire des sciences
Aleth Tisseau des Escotais, Véronique Stoll
Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire de Paris
La Bibliothèque de l’Observatoire de Paris conserve des archives et des collections patrimoniales variées, qui permettent de documenter l’histoire de l’astronomie et des sciences en général depuis le XVIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours. La collecte et le traitement d’archives et d’instruments scientifiques constituent toujours un sujet d’actualité, car il s’agit de mettre à disposition de la recherche des documents non encore inventoriés et de construire le patrimoine de demain.
10 May 2022,
15h30
« La France a gagné la bataille du ciel ! » : émergence de la caméra électronique à l’Observatoire de Paris (1945-1955)
Frédéric Soulu
CollEx-Persée – Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL
André Lallemand (1904-1978) est le concepteur d’une caméra électronique qui porte son nom et qui est identifiée, dans la communauté astronomique française, comme "le précurseur des détecteurs modernes". Le processus de développement de ce dispositif, basé sur la photoélectricité et la photomultiplication électronique, est marqué par quelques succès au début des années 50. Les archives inédites du fonds Lallemand sont en cours d’inventaire à la Bibliothèque de l’Observatoire de Paris. Elles permettent d’éclairer le contexte de production très particulier, lié à la seconde guerre mondiale, d’émergence de cet instrument, entre coopération militaire, brevets américains et ingénieurs allemands.
27 September 2022,
14h00
Capturing the Northern Lights: The use of television cameras to measure and study aurora
Samantha Thompson
National Air and Space Museum - Smithsonian Institution
The colorful, dancing lights of the northern and southern aurora have fascinated scientists, but because of their evolving and fleeting nature, they have eluded detailed study by most of our observational instrumentation. The visual observer could not draw or paint the aurora fast enough to capture their ethereal nature. In 1892, German astronomer Martin Brendel was the first to photograph the aurora and, within the decade, scientists established large-scale observational programs in attempt to photograph this brilliant phenomenon. However, while photographs could reveal new details about the structure of aurora, photographic emulsion was not practical for the aurora’s weak, moving light sources.
The rapid development of commercial television cameras, beginning in the 1940s, led to the emergence of low-light level detectors, based on television cameras, which were subsequently employed by astronomers to study various cosmic phenomena. By the early 1960s, astronomers began using commercial-grade television cameras and image-intensifier cameras to gain a better understanding of the detailed structure, change in shape and form type, and the various types of motion demonstrated by aurora. Television cameras helped reveal, for example, that the homogenous auroral arc (HA) was not as their name implied, homogenous, but was actively moving and changing form when viewed at a faster rate than the photographic emulsion or human eye could detect. Though aurora are still difficult to observe, television cameras ushered in a new era of understanding the elusive nature of aurora.
15 November 2022,
14h00
Jesuit astronomers and the cosmological controversies of the 17th century
Ivana Gambaro
Università degli Studi di Genova
The nature and extent of Jesuit contributions to scientific knowledge during the 17th century have been the object of in-depth historical analyses, in fact the Society of Jesus was one of the religious Order most engaged in pedagogical and scientific activities. Focusing on the post-Galilean period, I will analyze the research developed by some Jesuit astronomers and mathematicians through books, letters and other sources, highlighting the lack of a monolithic and rigid uniformity of scientific and epistemological views. There was in fact a constant tension between philosophers, theologians and mathematicians belonging to the Order, the latter torn between the need to adhere to the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition and a deep interest in innovative ideas developed in mechanics and cosmology. Moreover, the internal supervision carried out by the "Revisori Generali" often compelled individual researchers to find a complex balance between personal interests and innovative research on one hand, and true doctrine on the other. A demanding balance which often resulted in first-rate scientific activity in many Colleges, thus allowing the discovery of all sorts of natural effects, and the publication of those magnificent treatises, which, however, often present rather ambiguous considerations about cosmological models and the way in which the laws of nature operate. Here I focus on cosmological hypotheses, both geocentric and heliocentric, accepted or rejected using a palette of sophisticated arguments. My analysis will be limited to some well-known mathematicians and astronomers (G. B. Riccioli, H. Fabri, A.Tacquet, C.F. Millet Dechales), trying to understand how so many talented scholars invested all their time and energy, became masters of experimental practices, made important discoveries, published widely circulated treatises and yet played a rather minor role in the fundamental developments of the Scientific Revolution.
15 November 2022,
15h00
Geo-heliocentric controversies: The Jesuit network and the reception of Tycho Brahe in early Modern Portugal
Luis Miguel Carolino
ISCTE-Instituto Universitario de Lisboa
This paper explores the reception of Tycho Brahe’s astronomical and cosmological theories in early Modern Portugal through focusing on a specific community of Jesuit scholars, a group of foreign mathematicians trained in different academic traditions from across Europe, who taught astronomy at the College of Saint Antão, Lisbon, during the first half of the seventeenth century. Recent scholarship has emphasized the role that the Jesuit polyvalent information network played in the circulation of knowledge in the early modern period. Analysis of the appropriation of Tycho Brahe's astronomical theories by the international community of Jesuit mathematicians active in Lisbon may also offer an appropriate occasion to analyze how the Jesuit network affected the production of knowledge process itself. I argue that, despite supporting the Tychonic geo-heliocentric system, which they explicitly conceived of as a 'compromise' between the ancient Ptolemy and the modern Copernicus, and making recourse to some of the cosmological ideas produced in Tycho's Protestant milieu, the Jesuits active in Lisbon strove to confine the authority of the Lutheran astronomer to the domain of mathematics. Philosophy was expected to remain the realm of Catholic ortodoxy. Accordingly, although accepting cosmological ideas put forward by Tycho Brahe and his associate Christoph Rothmann, the professors of the College of Santo Antão explicitly avoided recognizing the authorship of those ideas. This case shows that the cultural politics of the Counter-Reformation, embodied here in this network of international Jesuits, curbed the reception of Tycho Brahe within a Catholic environment, such as Portugal.
6 December 2022,
11h30
Sur les traces d'un académicien méconnu : les observations d'Adrien Auzout entre France et Italie
Dalia Deias
Université de Bordeaux, SPH - EHESS, Centre Alexandre Koyré
L’historiographie ayant enquêté sur les savoirs de la moitié du XVIIe siècle en Europe a su reconnaitre l’importance d’Adrien Auzout (1622-1691). Figure savante en contact avec plusieurs académies européennes et puis académicien astronome de Louis XIV, praticien des horoscopes à un moment de sa vie, Auzout est central pour la technologie et l’utilisation des grandes lunettes. Ce rouannais participe également aux décisions sur la construction de l’Observatoire royal et aux premiers travaux de l’Académie royale des sciences (fondée en 1666). Pour des raisons pas encore totalement claires, Auzout se retire en Italie en 1668. Les informations le concernant, rares à toute époque, sont très précieuses. Peut-on trouver encore des traces de la pratique de cet important savant, en France et en Italie ? Peut-on mieux éclaircir (avec de nouvelles questions et de nouvelles sources) le lien entre son expertise dans les instruments astronomiques, ses observations (astronomiques, anatomiques, naturalistes) et sa pratique de l'astrologie divinatoire ? Nous montrerons, avec quelques éléments d’une recherche nouvelle, que la réponse est affirmative.
6 December 2022,
09h30
An astrology for the Austral hemisphere: Renaissance debates on the (im)mutability of astrological influences
Tayra M.C. Lanuza Navarro
Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
In a very casual way, Cardano very briefly mentioned the need to reinterpret traditional astrological notions, specifically the properties of the zodiacal signs and the astrological houses of the planets, in the Austral hemisphere. Cardano’s words started a debate in which he seems to have been (surprisingly ?) in the side of those accepting the possibility of altering Ptolemaic astrology for the southern hemisphere, with Campanella and an Augustinian friar and astrologer in Peru, against an outraged Jean Baptiste Morin, with a Spanish physician-astrologer immigrated to Peru in the opposite side, defending the immutability of astrological influences. This presentation discusses these authors' responses to the possible alteration, mainly focusing on the South American astrologers who responded in situ to the "need for a new astrology".
10 January 2023,
14h00
The challenge of a global Earth: Longitude and the Birth of Mathematical Cosmography
Henrique Leitao
CIUHCT, Faculty of Science ERC Project RUTTER University of Lisbon
Attempts at estimating by astronomical means the longitude of newly discovered lands had an enormous increment in the early sixteenth century. The reason behind these efforts was not navigational safety nor the desire for improved geographical knowledge, but quite more prosaically the ambitions of imperial expansion. In this presentation I will provide an overview of the measurements of longitude in the first decades of the 16th century. I will show how the results of these measurements clashed with nautical cartography of the period thus leading to heated scientific and diplomatic debates. I will also argue that the problems created by long distance oceanic voyages and the need for more accurate geographical descriptions led to the development of mathematical cosmography.
10 January 2023,
15h00
What Was Nomical in the Astro Navigation of Early Modern Arab Pilots?
Juan Acevedo
CIUHCT, Faculty of Science ERC Project RUTTER University of Lisbon
The celestial navigation skills of early modern Arab pilots in the Indian Ocean are as legendary as vaguely and partially known. In this talk I will draw directly from the two known late medieval sources, Ahmad ibn Mājid and particularly Sulaymān al-Mahrī —who remains mostly untranslated— to paint a fuller picture, including their astronomical framework, the techniques they used and their relation to scholarly astronomy. Working on an initial question, “What could be tabulated from their works?”, I expect to be able to delineate with some precision their craft, and so to furnish interested astronomers with clear elements for comparison and reflection.
24 January 2023,
14h00
Celio Calcagnini’s Quod caelum stet: A Humanist Defence of Terrestrial Motion in Copernicus’s Time
Pietro Daniel Omodeo
Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
The Ferrara humanist Celio Calcagnini (1479-1541), an Italian contemporary of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), wrote around 1518 an apology for the motion of the Earth, Quod caelum stet, terra moveatur vel de perenni motu terrae (That the Hevens Stand Still, and the Earth Moves, or on the Earth’s Constant Motion). It is a short but dense treatise, philosophically complex and sophisticated in style, on a topic of great interest in the history of cosmology. Yet, it has not so far received adequate consideration in the history of science. In his talk, Pietro Daniel Omodeo presents the publication of its first translation into a modern language, edited by Alberto Bardi and himself (Castelvecchi 2022).
7 February 2023,
14h00
Le système de référence de coordonnées de Paris, levé géométriquement par le citoyen Verniquet (1774-1799).
Julien Perret
IGN-LASTIG
Partant de l'analyse critique du Procès Verbal qui constate le travail fait par le Citoyen Verniquet, auteur du Plan de Paris, pour la vérification de toutes les Opérations Trigonométriques, qui ont servi pour les positions des principaux Monuments de Paris (Lalande, Lacroix : 1795), nous nous efforcerons de retracer ces opérations et d'en évaluer la cohérence et la qualité, depuis les levés sur le terrain jusqu'aux stratégies de calcul qui ont permis à Edme Verniquet et son équipe d'établir un système de référence de coordonnées de Paris et un plan de la ville d'une précision inédite. Nous nous appuierons pour cela sur le corpus très riche mais dispersé d'archives relatives à l'histoire et à la mise au point de son célèbre Atlas du plan général de la ville de Paris publié en 1793-1799.
7 February 2023,
15h30
Un projet cartographique pour l’Encyclopédie. Localisation par coordonnées et géovisualisation des articles de l'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d'Alembert.
Katherine McDonough, Ludovic Moncla, Thierry Joliveau
The Alan Turing Institute, Londres/LIRIS, Lyon/ISTHME-Université Jean Monnet
Le projet Géode (https://geode-project.github.io/) financé par le Labex ASLAN (https://aslan.universite-lyon.fr/) rassemble des chercheurs de plusieurs disciplines pour étudier le discours géographique et ses évolutions dans quatre encyclopédies françaises parues entre 1750 et nos jours. Il mobilise pour cela différentes méthodes : classification semi-supervisée des textes, génération de modèles de langues, repérage automatique de routines discursives, extraction et localisation d’Entités Spatiales Nommées, requête et visualisation de bases de données géographiques.
Un des objectifs du projet est d'extraire et de localiser les Entités Spatiales Nommées de l'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert. Un premier travail a permis d’identifier les lieux placés en vedette d’article dans les dix-sept volumes de texte, qui constituent en quelque sorte l'armature géographique de l'Encyclopédie. Plus d'un tiers de ces articles mentionnent des coordonnées géographiques qui permettent donc une localisation directe. Notre intervention se focalisera sur le repérage et l'extraction de ces coordonnées d'époque, leur vérification, leur correction et leur géovisualisation dans une carte interactive permettant de naviguer à la fois dans l'espace terrestre et l’espace textuel. Une fois ce travail terminé, il sera possible de caractériser l'espace géographique que décrit l'Encyclopédie par des indicateurs tels que la densité et la nature des lieux cités ou leur importance dans l’ouvrage par le nombre de caractères que lui consacre l'ouvrage. Il sera aussi possible de comparer l’espace et les lieux de l’Encyclopédie avec des cartes ou des données d'époque. À terme, ces articles pourraient constituer un gazetier utile pour faciliter la localisation des articles sans coordonnées ou les lieux cités dans d'autres textes du XVIIIe siècle.
14 March 2023,
16h00
Set time right - the impact of (mis-)calculating the Hijri Epoch in late imperial China
Dror Weil
University of Cambridge
Upon the establishment of the Ming dynasty, the first emperor ordered the
translation and adaptation of the Hijri Islamic calendar and its related calculation
methods and ushered in a new era in the application of Islamicate mathematical
astronomy in early modern China. To coordinate the Hijri and the Chinese
calendrical systems, as well as to make use of these calendrical systems for its
political causes, the Ming court devised algorithms that established reference
points, including the Hijri Epoch (li yuan 曆元) and Year 1 of the Hexadecimal Cycle
(jiazi nian 甲子年).
In the case of the Hijri Epoch factor, lack of attentiveness to a required coordination
of the solar and lunar systems led a flawed algorithm and subsequently a flawed
result. This talk will explore the impact of such a flaw on the application of
astronomy at the court and outside of it between the 14th and 17th centuries.
The set of astronomical algorithms and reference points that were established
during the late 14th century continued to be used, with some modification, as
factors in the various astronomical calculations and adjustments taken in the
Chinese courts up to the 17th century. They impacted the way Islamic astronomy
was implemented at the Chinese courts, its level of accuracy and eventually its
inferiority vis-à-vis European astronomical predictions. As such, the calculation of
these factors became a subject of debate among Chinese astronomers that lingered
even long after the Hijri calendar fell out of grace at the Chinese court. At the same
time, these calculated factors greatly shaped the cultural and religious identities of
China's Islamic communities by producing a flawed timeframe for the history of
Islam in China
14 March 2023,
14h00
Tales from early modern Indian astronomy: Islamicate ideas in Sanskritic idioms
Anuj Misra, Jean Arzoumanov
Gerda Henkel Research Fellow, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen / Postdoctoral Fellow, Project CEEMSA, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen
In its reception of ideas from the Marāgha and Samarqand schools, Sanskrit astronomy of early modern Mughal India adapted Islamicate (Arabic and Persian) concepts to suit the linguistic and logical requirements of its own changing episteme.The practical, physical, and philosophical forces that influenced this change are being investigated by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung-funded project Changing Episteme in Early Modern Sanskrit Astronomy (CEEMSA, 2022─23, Grant Agreement № AZ 21/F/21). In this talk, the project PI Anuj Misra and project postdoc Jean Arzoumanov will jointly present some of the latest developments of the project; in particular, those that have emerged in comparing the canons from two 17th century astronomical table-texts composed near-contemporaneously: the Persian Zīj-i Shāh Jahānī of Mullā Farīd and its Sanskrit translation, the Siddhāntasindhu of Nityānanda.
11 April 2023,
14h00
Victorine de Chastenay, auditrice des cours d’astronomie d’Arago
Colette Le Lay, Isabelle Lémonon-Waxin
Centre François Viète, CERMES3
Victorine de Chastenay (1771-1855), issue d’une famille de la noblesse bourguignonne, est l’autrice de traductions et ouvrages littéraires, de Mémoires réédités à plusieurs reprises, mais aussi d’une importante production de correspondances et de notes de lecture portant sur les domaines les plus variés : littérature, histoire, linguistique, chimie, astronomie, physique, botanique, géographie. Pour assouvir sa soif de savoirs, elle côtoie les plus grands savants de son temps, comme François Arago dont elle obtient un cours privé (1811-1812). Elle assiste ensuite (à partir de 1821) au cours public proposé à l’Observatoire de Paris, prenant en notes ses cours et ses observations dans des cahiers, conservés par les Archives départementales de la Côte d’Or, qui font l’objet d’un projet d’édition numérique.
11 April 2023,
15h00
L’astronomie selon Auguste Comte
Cyril Verdet
Syrte
L’importance de l’astronomie dans l’œuvre d’Auguste Comte est à la mesure de la place fondatrice qu’il lui accorde dans sa propre classification des sciences que constitue le Cours de philosophie positive. Comte dispense même un cours populaire d’astronomie, dont l’objectif n’est pas de former à l’astronomie mais à la « saine philosophie » positive. D’où le regard philosophique qu’il porte sur elle comme l’indique son Traité philosophique d’astronomie populaire. Pour Comte, l’astronomie est donc tout à la fois, un modèle de science positive et un faire-valoir de la philosophie positive et même de l’engagement positiviste, quitte à restreindre assez fortement son champ d’étude.
9 May 2023,
14h00
Une série d’instruments en évolution : les cercles méridiens des observatoires français. De leur nécessité absolue à leur valorisation patrimoniale
Jean Davoigneau, Loïc Jeanson
Chargé de projet – Mission Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel – Ministère de la Culture, France, Premier assistant – Faculté des Lettres – Université de Lausanne
Dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, tous les observatoires astronomiques de premier plan s’équipent d’un cercle méridien, les observatoires français ne font pas exception et de 1877 à 1890 ils acquièrent auprès d’une même dynastie de mécaniciens des instruments comparables. Ces cercles sont certes conçus suivant le même modèle mais chacun d’eux profite des défauts du précédent, des remarques des utilisateurs et des savoir-faire cumulés des constructeurs.
Dans notre intervention, nous reviendrons sur la mise en place de ce réseau instrumental, nous essaierons de présenter les transformations et renouvellements des instruments, de leurs accessoires et de leurs horloges en parallèle des usages et travaux scientifiques menés par les personnels des services méridiens des observatoires. Fait exceptionnel, un siècle et demi plus tard, tous les instruments ont été conservés, nous dresserons un constat d’état de leur conservation, protection et valorisation.
13 June 2023,
14h00
Geared to the Planets: The Digital Re-Animation of a War-Damaged Renaissance Equatorium
Michael Korey
Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Ptolemy’s theory to predict the motion of the planets was received and refined over many centuries by successive generations of mathematicians and astronomers writing in Greek, Arabic, and Latin, for whom the theoretical models largely served for the computation of tables to predict planetary positions. At least since the eleventh century, a class of specialized, analog mathematical instruments known as equatoria emerged alongside these tables. They consisted of rotatable graduated disks and radially turned arms or threads, with which planetary positions could readily be found. Such instruments offered both a visual representation of Ptolemy’s geometric models and a means for the approximate calculation of the planets’ positions. Certain of these instruments used metal gears to realize interconnected components of the desired motion.
Next to nothing of these early geared mechanisms survives, so that rediscovery or re-analysis of each such instrument is a cause for interest. Such a geared equatorium made of brass, with a simultaneous display of the “true” position of all seven of the classical planets in the zodiac, was sent to the Saxon court by the Coburg mathematician Nikolaus Valerius in 1564. After it was caught up in the bombing of Dresden in 1945, it survives only as a disfigured, burnt fragment, but even before WWII it was never subject to a comprehensive analysis. The talk describes the many steps undertaken in the attempt to use digital means to analyze and reconstruct what this equatorium once did – and did not – show.
13 June 2023,
15h30
Adventures of two astronomers from Geneva on the way to Lapland to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun in 1769
Dimitri Bayuk
Observatoire de Paris
Two astronomers from Geneva, Jacques-André Mallet and Jean-Louis Pictet, set out for Russia on 4 April 1768, and by March 1769 arrived at their observational sites in the Russian part of Lapland (Kola Peninsula) to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun on 3 June. They returned to Geneva on 29 October. Both left detailed diaries of their adventures during this mission. The diaries were stored unpublished in archives of Geneva until the beginning of this century when a group of scholars decided to publish and comment on them. The book appeared in 2005 in Switzerland, and in 2018 the Swiss Ambassy in Moscow initiated a project of publishing their annotated translations in Russian. Among all other observers, they were a kind of exception: thanks to manipulations of Leonard Euler and Daniel Bernoulli, they not only were allowed to conduct their observations on the Russian territory but also their projects were funded by the Russian crown. Measurements of 1769 turned out to be much more successful in determining the solar parallax and, therefore, the real dimensions of the Solar system that those of 1761.
10 October 2023,
14h00
Un projet cartographique pour l’Encyclopédie. Localisation par coordonnées et géovisualisation des articles de l'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d'Alembert.
Ludovic Moncla, Thierry Joliveau
LIRIS, Lyon / ISTHME-Université Jean Monnet
Le projet Géode (https://geode-project.github.io/) financé par le Labex ASLAN (https://aslan.universite-lyon.fr/) rassemble des chercheurs de plusieurs disciplines pour étudier le discours géographique et ses évolutions dans quatre encyclopédies françaises parues entre 1750 et nos jours. Il mobilise pour cela différentes méthodes : classification semi-supervisée des textes, génération de modèles de langues, repérage automatique de routines discursives, extraction et localisation d’Entités Spatiales Nommées, requête et visualisation de bases de données géographiques. Un des objectifs du projet est d'extraire et de localiser les Entités Spatiales Nommées de l'Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert. Un premier travail a permis d’identifier les lieux placés en vedette d’article dans les dix-sept volumes de texte, qui constituent en quelque sorte l'armature géographique de l'Encyclopédie. Plus d'un tiers de ces articles mentionnent des coordonnées géographiques qui permettent donc une localisation directe. Notre intervention se focalisera sur le repérage et l'extraction de ces coordonnées d'époque, leur vérification, leur correction et leur géovisualisation dans une carte interactive permettant de naviguer à la fois dans l'espace terrestre et l’espace textuel. Une fois ce travail terminé, il sera possible de caractériser l'espace géographique que décrit l'Encyclopédie par des indicateurs tels que la densité et la nature des lieux cités ou leur importance dans l’ouvrage par le nombre de caractères que lui consacre l'ouvrage. Il sera aussi possible de comparer l’espace et les lieux de l’Encyclopédie avec des cartes ou des données d'époque. À terme, ces articles pourraient constituer un gazetier utile pour faciliter la localisation des articles sans coordonnées ou les lieux cités dans d'autres textes du XVIIIe siècle.
14 November 2023,
14h00
Practices of Precision: Timekeeping in XVIIIth-Century Observatories
Sibylle Gluch
Erzgebirgisches Spielzeugmuseum und Freilichtmuseum Seiffen - Ore Mountain Toy Museum and Open Air Museum Seiffen
In XVIIIth-century astronomy, the precision of timekeeping was an essential prerequisite to successfully accomplish a variety of pressing tasks. In fact, the invention of the pendulum clock alongside other instruments such as telescope and micrometer substantially altered astronomical practices by facilitating a degree of precision that was formerly unknown. However, in order to realize the precision potential of these new instruments, astronomers needed to develop and define appropriate ways of dealing with them: clocks only perform correctly when treated properly. Rather than exclusively focusing on the technological development of clocks, the paper explores the conditions and manners of their use and control in 18th-century observatories. It shows the diversity that characterizes observatory timekeeping practices for most of the period, and studies incipient processes of standardization. The paper argues that by these processes of learning rather than technology alone, the pendulum clock first became a precision instrument. Thus, the notion of the ‘precision clock,’ as it emerged in the XVIIIth century, did not simply refer to a particular type of object, but to a complex entity of object and associated practices.
14 November 2023,
15h30
Pratiques de la précision : du bon usage du chronomètre de poche à la fin du XVIIIe siècle
Rossella Baldi
Université de Neuchâtel
Pratiques de la précision : du bon usage du chronomètre de poche à la fin du XVIIIe siècle
Complice d’une historiographie anglo-saxonne dominée par l’hagiographie de John Harrison, l’histoire des origines de la chronométrie s’est façonnée autour d’une vision biaisée et fortement teintée de déterminisme technologique. Cette tradition a élaboré le récit d’une success-story à la fois fulgurante et uniforme, en attribuant la réussite du chronomètre à son contenu technique innovant : transformée en garde-temps, dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle la montre perd en effet son statut de marqueur social pour devenir un instrument scientifique à part entière. Ces études ont toutefois négligé d’interroger les processus de négociation sociaux, culturels et scientifiques sous-jacents à ce changement de paradigme. Des arrangements, voire des compromis sont rendus nécessaires pour atteindre un consensus sur les avantages de ce nouvel instrument. Parmi ceux-ci, l’apprentissage de pratiques matérielles et corporelles garantissant le fonctionnement correct de ces montres a compté de manière significative dans leur diffusion. La performance du garde-temps – et par conséquent la fiabilité des données collectées et leur élaboration en faits scientifiques – résulte de facteurs dont l’utilisateur est le seul responsable, et non pas de la qualité des engrenages. Ainsi, c’est aux enjeux de cette interaction entre usagers et garde-temps que notre intervention va se consacrer. Elle se basera notamment sur l’exemple des chronomètres de poche produits par l’atelier londonien de Josiah Emery entre 1782 et 1794, considérés à la fin du XVIIIe siècle les montres les plus précises de leur époque.
12 December 2023,
14h00
Adapting and accepting the European astronomical system: A study of the mistakes in the calculation of eclipses using th Western methods in the late Ming and early Qing China
Ji Chen
SYRTE PSL-Observatoire de Paris
European astronomy was used to reform the calendar with the assistance of the Jesuits in the late Ming China and became the official astronomical system in the early Qing dynasty. However, the process of widespread recognition and application of the Western astronomical methods was not smooth but full of obstacles. Taking the eclipse prediction, one of the focal points of attention at that time, as an entry point, this presentation will reveal the relevant historical details by discussing the mistakes that occurred in the calculation of eclipses by the Western methods. Firstly, the mistake in the process of predicting the solar eclipse in the 7th year of the Ming Chongzhen 崇祯 reign (1634) had a bad impact on the official adoption of the Western methods. Besides the reasons discussed by previous scholars, the serious consequences should be also related to the uncredible explanation given by the Jesuits for the cause of this mistake. Secondly, the mistakes in the calculation of eclipses by the Western methods during the Chongzhen reign (r. 1628-1644) were not isolated incidents. Their occurrence was inseparable from human factors such as the carelessness. But fundamentally speaking, the root cause actually laid in the adoption of Chinese and Western astronomical systems in eclipse prediction results and calculation processes, respectively. Until the late period of Qing Kangxi 康熙 reign (r. 1662-1722), with the gradual application of the Western astronomical systems in both eclipse calculation processes and prediction results, as well as the improvement of eclipse calculation processes to reduce the influence of human factors, the mistakes in eclipse calculations by the Western methods were basically eliminated or almost completely avoided.
Colette Le Lay (Centre François Viète, Univ. de Nantes et de Bretagne occidentale) Courriel
Martina Schiavon (Archives Henri-Poincaré, Univ. de Lorraine et de Strasbourg) Courriel
Nicole Capitaine (Syrte, Bureau des Longitudes, Observatoire de Paris) Courriel - Tél.:+33 (0) 140512231
Frédéric Soulu (CollEx-Persée – Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL) Courriel
Matthieu Husson, (Syrte, Observatoire de Paris) Courriel - Tél.: +33 (0) 140512371
Christophe Schmit (Syrte, Observatoire de Paris) Courriel - Tél.: +33 (0) 140512127
Le développement de l’astronomie ne peut se saisir que sur le temps long en tenant compte d’échanges complexes entre des contextes historiques et culturels pluriels. Par ailleurs, l’astronomie se trouve liée à différents domaines dont elle partage l’histoire : celle des sciences astronomiques.
Ce séminaire envisage les sciences astronomiques sous différents axes :
Ce séminaire, qui se veut un espace d’échanges entre historiens des sciences, astronomes et astrophysiciens, est ouvert à un public large (chercheurs, enseignants, étudiants etc.) et se tient périodiquement à l’Observatoire de Paris (en présence et à distance).
Il est le fruit d’une collaboration entre le Centre François Viète (UR 1161, Université de Nantes et Université de Bretagne occidentale), les Archives Henri-Poincaré - Philosophie et Recherches sur les Sciences et les Technologies (UMR 7117 du CNRS, de l’Université de Lorraine, de l’Université de Strasbourg), le Bureau des longitudes, la Bibliothèque de l’Observatoire de Paris et le laboratoire SYRTE - Systèmes de Référence Temps-Espace (UMR 8630 du CNRS, de l’Observatoire de Paris - Université PSL, de Sorbonne Université et du LNE).
The development of astronomy can only be understood over the longue durée by taking into account complex exchanges between plural historical and cultural contexts. Moreover, astronomy is linked to different domains of inquiry whose history it shares : that of the astronomical sciences.
This seminar considers the astronomical sciences from different angles :
This seminar, which aims to be a space of exchange between historians of science, astronomers and astrophysicists, is open to a large public (researchers, teachers, students, etc.) and is held periodically at the Observatoire de Paris (in presence and online).
It is the result of a collaboration between the François Viète Center (UR 1161, University of Nantes and University of Bretagne occidentale), the Henri-Poincaré Archives - Philosophy and Research on Science and Technology (UMR 7117 of the CNRS, the University of Lorraine, the University of Strasbourg), the Bureau des Longitudes, The Paris Observatory Library and the SYRTE laboratory - Systèmes de Référence Temps-Espace (UMR 8630 of the CNRS, the Observatoire de Paris - Université PSL, Sorbonne University and the LNE).