Alfonsine tables or Alphonsine tables (ălfŏn'sĭn), compilation of astronomical data tabulating the positions and movements of the planets, completed c.1252 and printed in Venice in 1483. They were a revision and improvement of the Ptolemaic tables and were compiled at Toledo, Spain, by about 50 astronomers assembled for the purpose by Alfonso X of Castile.
Alfonsine tables
| 5min Related Video: Alfonsine tables |
| Wikipedia: Alfonsine tables |
The Alfonsine tables (sometimes spelled Alphonsine tables) provided data for computing the position of the Sun, Moon and planets relative to the fixed stars. They are named for Alfonso X of Castile, upon whose order they were prepared in Toledo, Spain around 1252 to 1270.
Contents |
Production
Alfonso X assembled a team of scholars, including both Jews and Moors, to produce new tables that updated the Tables of Toledo. The new tables were based on observations by Islamic astronomers and on earlier astronomical works preserved by Islamic scholars.[1]
The instructions for the Alfonsine tables were originally written in the Castilian Spanish,[2] but a version in Castilian has not survived. What are now called Alfonsine tables seem to have originated in Paris around 1320 in Latin.[3][4] The first printed edition of the Alfonsine tables appeared in 1483, with a second edition in 1491.
Georg Purbach used the Alfonsine tables for his book, Theoricae novae planetarum (New Theory of the Planets). Nicolaus Copernicus used the second edition in his work. One use of these and similar astronomical tables was to calculate ephemerides, which were in turn used by astrologers to cast horoscopes.[5]
Methodology
The methods of Claudius Ptolemy were used to compute the table and they divided the year into 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 16 seconds - very close to the currently accepted figure. There is a famous (but apocryphal) quote attributed to Alfonso upon hearing an explanation of the extremely complicated mathematics required to demonstrate Ptolemy's geocentric model of the solar system - "If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation thus, I should have recommended something simpler." (The validity of this quotation is questioned by some historians.[6]) This quotation has been used to illustrate the large number of additional epicycles introduced into the Ptolemaic system in an attempt to make it conform with observation. However, modern computations[7] have concluded that the methodology used to derive the Alfonsine tables was Ptolemy's unmodified theory and that the original computations were correct.
Popularity
The Alfonsine tables were the most popular astronomical tables in Europe and updated versions were regularly produced for three hundred years. Copernicus himself owned a copy. In 1551, the Prutenic Tables (or Prussian Tables) of Erasmus Reinhold's were published . These tables used the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system. Copernicus's publication—De revolutionibus—was not easy to use and the Prutenic tables were intended to make the heliocentric model more usable by astologers and astromomers. However, the Prutenic tables were not widely adopted outside German speaking countries and new ephemerides based on the Alfonsine tables continued to be published[8] until the publication of Johannes Kepler's Rudolphine Tables in 1627.
References
- ^ Noah J. Efron, Judaism and Science: A Historical Introduction (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007).
- ^ Jose Chabas and Bernard R. Goldstein, The Alfonsine Tables of Toledo (Kluwer, 2003).
- ^ Jose Chabas and Bernard R. Goldstein, John of Murs's Tables of 1321 (Journ. Hist. Astron. 40, 297-320, 2009).
- ^ Emmanuel Poulle, Les astronomes Parisiens au XIVe siecle et l'astronomie alphonsine (Histoire litteraire de la France, Book 43, 2005).
- ^ Owen Gingerich, Gutenberg's Gift pp. 319-28 in Library and information services in astronomy V (Astron. Soc. Pacific Conference Series vol. 377, 2007).
- ^ Owen Gingerich, "Alfonso X as a Patron of Astronomy," pp. 30-45 in Alfonso X of Castile, the Learned King (1221-1284 (Harvard Studies in Romance Languages 43, 1990).
- ^ Owen Gingerich: The Book Nobody Read. Walker, 2004, Ch. 4 (ISBN 0-8027-1415-3)
- ^ http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/tables.html
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Learn More
 | Year 1483 (in Science & Technology) |
| Year 1272 (in Science & Technology) |
| Year 1551 (in Science & Technology) |
Help us answer these
 | What was on the Knights of the Round Table's table? |
| What is the radical table and how come there are no tables for it? |
| What is a term for a table within a table? |
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
 |
 | Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alfonsine tables". Read more |
Related answers
- How did Alfonsine Tables Prutenic Tables and Rudolphine Tables differ?
- What is tables?
- What are tables?
- Off the table or off of the table?
ADVERTISEMENT
Answer these
- What is an in-out table?
- What is a table?
- How do you get a table?
- Most tables have titles to what is in the table?
Mentioned in
- Year 1483 (in Science & Technology)
- Year 1272 (in Science & Technology)
- Year 1551 (in Science & Technology)
- Alfonso X (Spanish king of Castile and León)
- Year 1250 (in Science & Technology)
- 1252 (chronology)
- John of Saxony (astronomer)
- Tables of Toledo
- Prutenic Tables
- Heinrich Baten
- Isaac ibn Sid
- Trepidation (astronomy)
- Johannes Stadius
- Deferent and epicycle
