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The Earliest Evidence of the Introduction of Kepler’S Laws to China as is Observed in the Lifa Wenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

Keizo Hashimoto
Keizo Hashimoto*
Affiliation:
Japan

Extract

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Recently Catherine Jami and I have found the manuscript of the Lifa wenda Dialogue on Astronomy) by Jean-Francois Foucquet (Fu Shengze , 1665-1741) at British Library. Together with the other, partial, but, otherwise identical, version, which she had located at the Vatican Apostolic Library, the manuscript, especially Book V, Part 1, from the British Library, gives us the detail of how Kepler’s forst and second Laws was introduced into China as early as in the 1710’s. This means that we can go back in the history of the introduction more than two decades earlier than the so far believed date.

Type
II. Joint Discussions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 11 , Issue 2: Highlights of Astronomy. As presented at the XXIIIrd General Assembly of the IAU (Part B), 1997 , 1998 , pp. 736 - 738
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1998

References

1 Oriental and India Office Collections, OR Add. 16634.

2 Borgia Cinese 319(1) and 319(2). Cf.Hashimoto, K. and Jami, C., “Kepler’s Laws in China: A Missing Link?”, Historica Scientiarum, vol. 6-3, 1997;171–185.Google Scholar In the paper, we have shown the table of the contents (cf. Table 1).

3 Nissen, Andreas, Ole Rømer, Copenhagen, 1944;p.32.Google Scholar

4 Yabuuti, Kiyosi, Chugoku no Tenmon Rekiho, Tokyo: Heibonsha. 1969, p.171.Google Scholar

5 ARSI, Jap. Sin. II 154.

6 Lifa wenda V-l-1. In the introduction of the Treatise on Lunar Motion, Foucquet first discussed this topic in detail in Chapter III-l.

7 Book III Part 1, ff.72a-b.

8 V-1, ff.3a-5b. The micrometer is described here.

9 V-1, 8b. Cf. The dark spot on Jupiter produced by the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet in 1995. As to Cassini’s observation see Tabe, I. et al., “Discovery of a Possible Impact Spot on Jupiter Recorded in 1690”, Pub. Astron. soc. Japan 49, pp.L1–L5 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 V-1, ff.36a-45b.

11 V-l, f. 47b.

12 In the preface to the treatise on planetary motions, we observe as the more term, tuo-yuan, has been used for the shape of orbits, oval or ellipse, other than circle (V-l, f. i). The term, tuoyuan-xing, with the hand radical for the character, tuo, has first appeared in the Celiang quanyi , quan 6, in the Chongzhen lishu, where the conic sections are discussed. See the Xinfa suanshu edition, quan 92, p.9a, 1.2; Taibei reprint version, 1972.

13 V-1, ff.50a.

14 V-1, ff.51b-52b.

15 V-1, ff.78a-83b.

16 Cf. Wilson, 1989, p.183.