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George Joachim Rheticus, most commonly known as Rheticus, was well known for his trigonometric tables and considered a pupil of Copernicus. He was born on February 16, 1514 in Feldkirch, known in present day as Austria. After his father’s execution, Rheticus went on to study at the Latin school in Feldkirch, then went to Zurich where he attended the Frauenmuensterschule from 1528 to 1531. In 1533, he began his studies at the University of Wittenberg. Then in 1536, Philipp Melanchthon, an influential educator in Germany, appointed Rheticus to teach astronomy and mathematics at Wittenberg. In the same year, Melanchthon also appointed Rheticus as the chair of Lower Mathematics. Two years after being appointed, Rheticus was given a two year leave of Wittenberg to study alongside other well-known astronomers at that time. It was presumed that the purpose of the leave was for Rheticus to become closer to Copernicus. His colleagues at Wittenberg described Rheticus’s personality as abnormal and enthusiastic, with homosexual tendencies. They perceived Rheticus as a man who would get caught up by the fame and knowledge of older men, and would fantasize about them. This led them to believe that was the sole purpose of Rheticus asking Melanchthon for the leave of absence from Wittenberg. Rheticus’s fantasy to work with Copernicus may have been true. However, several factors suggest that Rheticus first learned of Copernicus during his travel across Germany in late 1538. After these two met, their relationship grew strong through sharing world-bending ideas. Rheticus ended up staying with Copernicus for two and a half years. Rheticus had acquired a father figure in Copernicus and he acquired the only real student he would ever have.

Rheticus and Copernican Theory

Unlike the other students of Melanchthon, Reinhold and Peucer, whom doubted Copernicus’s theory, Rheticus praised Copernicus for asserting an ‘absolute system’ of the planets. In 1540, Rheticus wrote the De libris revolutionum Copernici narration prima, commonly known as Narratio Prima, an introduction to the theories of Copernicus. Along with the publication, he visited a publisher and printer in Noremberg in order to push Copernicus to publish De Rev. Copernicus developed his heliocentric theory after realizing that the retrograde motion of the planets could be explained much better without epicycles, with the Earth orbiting the sun rather than the other way around. Rheticus believed that the heliocentric universe should be adopted because it could explain: 1) the phenomena of the precision of the equinoxes and the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, 2) the sun was the center of the deferents (link to deferent and epicycle wiki) of the planets, 3) it allowed the circles in the universe to revolve uniformly and regularly, 4) it united all the spheres into one system, and 5) it was a simpler model with fewer explanations necessary. (Stanford).

The Wittenberg textbooks emphasized the problems of the Copernican theory and how it related to the calendar, lunar motion, and the rejection of the equant. The Narratio prima also contained ideas that were not found in de revolutionibus or in any of Copernicus’s other writings. The book attacked the demonstration of a system in the necessary interconnexity of the relative distance and periods of the planets, a problem in the Copernican theory that the textbooks did not mention. Rheticus claimed that a common measure was established to explain how the planets were geometrically aligned and arranged so that no immense interval left between one and the other. His claim made three assumptions about the planetary models: that each planet is carried by a uniformly revolving sphere, that there are no gaps between the spheres, and that the relative planetary positions are to be measured with respect to a common unit. He wanted to eliminate the earth’s projected motion from the planetary models for the planets to be placed continuously based on their mean periodic motions.

Copernicus and Rheticus both knew that there would be backlash. One theologian Andreas Osiander, in order to stall censorship of Copernicus's work, wrote in an anonymous preface that described the work as a pure hypothesis. Rheumatics became furious and crossed out the preface of those that he could get his hands on. The Church also emphasized that Copernicus’s theory was off scripture and believed that the world revolved around the Earth and were persistent with the Earth being in the center. Science is frowned upon by the church because it is uncertain in the Bible, and certain knowledge of physics is not necessary to our salvation. However, knowledge of astronomy on the other hand is demanded of great men by God. The Copernican theory indicates that the earth is a planet, that all planets have defects, and all are subject only to circular motions. Rheticus argues that these characteristics are not a physical problem but a mathematical one. With this claim, he aimed to shift the perspective of the Church so that the theory could be explained mathematically, which would be more acceptable since it represents direct testimony of God’s Providence and God gives clues to it in Scripture.131.