The Sleepwalkers (98 page)

"...
I
cannot
get
over
my
amazement
at
the
mental
inertia
of
our
astronomers
in
general
who,
like
credulous
women,
believe
what
they
read
in
the
books,
tablets
and
commentaries
as
if
it
were
the
divine
and
unalterable
truth;
they
believe
the
authors
and
neglect
the
truth."
³⁷

In
another context, he says:

"It
is
necessary
to
keep
the
stars
doggedly
before
one's
eyes,
and
to
rid
posterity
from
ancient
tradition."
³⁸

It
sounds like a polemic against the programme of Copernicus, who was
not yet born, "to follow the methods of the ancients strictly
and to hold fast to their observations which have been handed down to
us like a Testament"!

In
his
middle
thirties,
Regiomontanus
held
a
profitable
position
in
Hungary
at
the
court
of
King
Mathias
Corvinus.
But
he
convinced
his
royal
patron
that
Ptolemy
could
no
longer
be
relied
on,
and
that
it
was
necessary
to
put
astronomy
on
new
foundations
by
patient
observations,
making
use
of
such
recent
inventions
as
the
corrected
sundial
and
the
mechanical
clock.
Mathias
agreed,
and
in
1471,
Regiomontanus
went
to
Nuremberg
where,
with
the
help
of
a
rich
patrician,
Johann
Walther,
he
installed
the
first
European
observatory,
for
which
he
partly
invented
the
instruments.

The
manuscripts
and
notes
of
Regiomontanus'
last
years
are
lost,
and
there
remain
only
scant
indications
of
the
reform
of
astronomy
that
he
planned.
But
we
know
that
he
had
paid
special
attention
to
Aristarchus'
heliocentric
system,
as
a
note
on
one
of
his
manuscripts
shows.
³⁹
And
much
earlier
he,
too,
had
noted
that
the
sun
ruled
the
motions
of
the
planets.
Towards
the
end
of
his
life,
he
wrote
on
a
piece
of
paper
enclosed
in
a
letter
the
words:
"It
is
necessary
to
alter
the
motion
of
the
stars
a
little
because
of
the
motion
of
the
earth."
The
wording,
as
Zinner
has
shown,
seems
to
indicate
that
the
"motion
of
the
earth"
here
refers
not
to
the
daily
rotation
but
to
its
annual
revolution
round
the
sun;
⁴⁰
in
other
words
that
Regiomontanus
had
arrived
at
the
same
conclusions
as
Aristarchus
and
Copernicus,
but
was
prevented
from
going
further
by
his
untimely
death.
He
died
at
forty,
three
years
after
Copernicus
was
born.

At
the
universities
where
Copernicus
studied,
the
tradition
of
Cusa
and
Regiomontanus
was
very
much
alive.
His
principal
teachers
in
astronomy:
Brudzewski
in
Cracow
,
and
Maria
Novara
in
Bologna,
both
called
themselves
pupils
of
Regiomontanus.
Finally,
in
Ferrara
Copernicus
met
young
Celio
Calcagnini,
poet
and
philosopher,
who
later
published
a
short
book
with
a
significant
title:
Quomodo
coelum
stet,
terra
moveatur,
vel
de
perenni
motu
terrae
Commentario
–
"A
Treatise
concerning
how
the
Heavens
rest,
the
Earth
moves,
or
on
the
perennial
motions
of
the
Earth".
⁴¹
Calcagnini,
who
had
written
a
pretty
poem
to
greet
the
arrival
of
Lucretia
Borgia
in
Ferrara,
was
not
a
profound
intellect;
his
thesis
that
the
heavens
are
at
rest,
the
earth
in
eternal
movement,
was
inspired
by
Cusa
and
simply
echoed
an
idea
that
was,
as
we
saw,
much
in
the
air.
He
probably
owed
his
insight
to
his
friend
and
contemporary
in
Ferrara,
Jacob
Ziegler,
an
astronomer
of
some
merit,
who
wrote
a
commentary
on
Pliny
which
contains
the
lapidary
statement:
"The
motions
of
all
planets
depend
on
the
sun."

More
examples
of
a
similar
kind
could
be
quoted,
but
I
have
said
enough
to
show
that
the
ideas
of
a
moving
earth,
and
of
the
sun
as
the
true
ruler
of
the
planetary
system,
belonged
both
to
the
antique
tradition
of
cosmology,
and
were
much
discussed
in
Copernicus'
own
time.
Yet
Canon
Koppernigk
was
undoubtedly
the
first
to
develop
the
idea
into
a
comprehensive
system.
This
is
his
lasting
merit,
regardless
of
the
inconsistencies
and
shortcomings
of
his
system.
He
was
not
an
original
thinker,
but
a
crystallizer
of
thought;
and
the
crystallizers
often
achieve
more
lasting
fame
and
a
greater
influence
on
history
than
the
initiators
of
new
ideas.

There
is
a
well-known
process
in
chemistry
which
will
illustrate
what
I
mean
by
a
crystallizer.
If
you
put
kitchen
salt
into
a
glass
of
water
until
the
water
is
"saturated"
and
will
dissolve
no
more
salt,
and
suspend
a
thread
with
a
knot
at
its
end
in
the
solution,
then
after
a
while
a
crystal
will
form
round
the
knot.
The
shape
and
texture
of
the
knot
are
irrelevant;
what
matters
is
that
the
liquid
has
reached
saturation
point,
and
that
a
core
has
been
provided
round
which
it
can
start
to
crystallize.
Cosmology
at
the
end
of
the
Middle
Ages
was
saturated
with
vague
notions
of
a
spinning
and
moving
earth,
with
echoes
of
the
Pythagoreans,
of
Aristarchus
and
Herakleides,
of
Macrobius
and
Pliny,
with
the
exciting
suggestions
thrown
out
by
Cusa
and
Regiomontanus.
Canon
Koppernigk
was
the
patient
knot,
suspended
in
the
solution,
who
enabled
it
to
crystallize.