科学家百人箓 (one hundred most influential scientists of all times)

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有史以来最有影响力的一百位科学家 (one hundred most influential scientists of all times) 由大英百科全书编译。

全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载。


引言摘录如下：

From the very first moment humans appeared on the planet, we have attempted to understand and explain the world around us. The most insatiably curious among us often have become scientists.

The scientists discussed in this book have shaped humankind’s knowledge and laid the foundation for virtually every scientific discipline, from basic biology to black holes. Some of these individuals were inclined to ponder questions about what was contained within the human body, while others were intrigued by celestial bodies. Their collective vision has been concentrated enough to examine  microscopic particles and broad enough to unlock tremendous universal marvels such as gravity, relativity— even the nature of life itself.

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In 1675, Isaac Newton wrote a letter to Robert Hooke in which he said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Thanks to the pioneering efforts of the scientists mentioned in this introduction, along with the other chemists, biologists, astronomers, ecologists, and geneticists in the remainder of this book, today’s scientists have a solid foundation upon which to make astounding leaps of logic. Without the work of these men and women, we would not have computers, electricity, or many other modern conveniences. We would not have the vaccines and medications that help keep us healthy. And, in general, we would know a lot less about the way the human body functions and the way the world works.

Today’s scientists owe a huge debt of gratitude to the scientists of days past. By standing on the shoulders of these giants, who knows how far they may be able to see.

(全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载)


向所有科学家和同行致敬。

站在巨人肩膀上的矮人（拉丁语：nanos gigantum humeris insidentes）表达了“借用前人的成果来邁向下一步”的含义。 这个概念可以追溯到12世纪，归功于沙特尔的伯纳德。 1675年艾萨克·牛顿（Isaac Newton）最熟悉的英语表达是：“如果我能看到远方那是因为我是站在巨人的肩膀上。” 。

The metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) expresses the meaning of "discovering truth by building on previous discoveries". This concept has been traced to the 12th century, attributed to Bernard of Chartres. Its most familiar expression in English is by Isaac Newton in 1675: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." (en.m.wikipedia.org/standing on the shoulders of giants).

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阿斯克勒庇厄斯（希腊语：Ἀσκληπιός，拉丁語：Asclepius），是古希腊神话中的医神，在古罗马神话中被称为埃斯库拉庇乌斯（拉丁语：Aesculapius），他是太阳神阿波罗之子，形象為手持蛇杖。(zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/阿斯克勒庇俄斯)

In the Iliad, the writer Homer mentions Asclepius only as a skillful physician and the father of two Greek doctors at Troy, Machaon and Podalirius. In later times, however, he was honoured as a hero, and eventually worshiped as a god. Asclepius (Greek: Asklepios, Latin: Aesculapius), the son of Apollo (god of healing, truth, and prophecy) and the mortal princess Coronis, became the Greco-Roman god of medicine. Legend has it that the Centaur Chiron, who was famous for his wisdom and knowledge of medi- cine, taught Asclepius the art of healing. At length Zeus, the king of the gods, afraid that Asclepius might render all men immortal, slew him with a thunderbolt. Apollo slew the Cyclopes who had made the thunderbolt and was then forced by Zeus to serve Admetus.
Asclepius’s cult began in Thessaly but spread to many parts of Greece. Because it was supposed that Asclepius effected cures of the sick in dreams, the practice of sleeping in his temples in Epidaurus in South Greece became common. This practice is often described as Asclepian incubation. In 293 BCE his cult spread to Rome, where he was worshiped as Aesculapius.
Asclepius was frequently represented standing, dressed in a long cloak, with bare breast; his usual attribute was a staff with a serpent coiled around it. This staff is the only true symbol of medicine. A similar but unrelated emblem, the caduceus, with its winged staff and intertwined serpents, is frequently used as a medical emblem but is without medical relevance since it represents the magic wand of Hermes, or Mercury, the messenger of the gods and the patron of trade. However, its similarity to the staff of Asclepius resulted in modern times in the adoption of the caduceus as a symbol of the physician and as the emblem of the U.S. Army Medical Corp.

全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载。

jamestang

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希波克拉底（古希臘文：Ἱπποκράτης，前460年－前370年），為古希臘伯里克利時代之醫師，約生於公元前460年，後世人普遍認為其為醫學史上傑出人物之一。在其所身處之上古時代，醫學並不發達，然而他卻能將醫學發展成為專業學科，使之與巫術及哲學分離，並創立了以之為名的醫學學派，對古希臘之醫學發展貢獻良多，故今人多尊稱之為「醫學之父」。(zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/希波克拉底)

Breakthroughs in the medical sciences have been numerous and extremely valuable. Study in this discipline begins with a contemporary of Aristotle’s named Hippocrates, who is commonly regarded as the “father of medicine.” Perhaps Hippocrates’ most enduring legacy to the field is the Hippocratic Oath, the ethical code that doctors still abide by today. By taking the Hippocratic Oath, doctors pledge to Asclepius, the Greco-Roman god of medicine, that to the best of their knowledge and abilities, they will prescribe the best course of medical care for their patients. They also promise to, above all, cause no harm to any patient.

Technical medical science developed in the Hellenistic period and after. Surgery, pharmacy, and anatomy advanced; physiology became the subject of serious speculation; and philosophic criticism improved the logic of medical theories. Competing schools in medicine (first Empiricism and later Rationalism) claimed Hippocrates as the origin and inspiration of their doctrines. For later physicians, Hippocrates stood as the inspirational source, and today Hippocrates still continues to represent the humane, ethical aspects of the medical profession.

全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载。

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亚里士多德（希臘語：Αριστοτέλης，Aristotélēs，前384年－前322年3月7日），古希腊哲学家，柏拉圖的學生、亚历山大大帝的老師。他的著作牽涉許多學科，包括了物理學、形而上學、詩歌（包括戲劇）、音乐、生物學、經濟學、動物學、邏輯學、政治、政府、以及倫理學。和柏拉圖、蘇格拉底（柏拉圖的老師）一起被譽為西方哲學的奠基者。亞里士多德的著作是西方哲學的第一個廣泛系統，包含道德、美學、邏輯和科學、政治和形而上学。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/亚里士多德)


Aristotle (Greek: Aristoteles) was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, and one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. He was the author of a philosophical and scientific system that became the framework and vehicle for both Christian Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of the arts, including biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, physics, poetics, political theory, psychology, and zoology. He was the founder of formal logic, devising for it a finished system that for centuries was regarded as the sum of the discipline. Aristotle also pioneered the study of zoology, both observational and theoretical, in which some of his work remained unsurpassed until the 19th century. His writings in metaphysics and the philosophy of science continue to be studied, and his work remains a powerful current in contemporary philosophical debate.

Physics and Metaphysics.
Aristotle divided the theoretical sciences into three groups: physics, mathematics, and theology. Physics as he understood it was equivalent to what would now be called “natural philosophy,” or the study of nature; in this sense it encompasses not only the modern field of physics but also biology, chemistry, geology, psychology, and even meteorology. Metaphysics, however, is notably absent from Aristotle’s classification; indeed, he never uses the word, which first appears in the posthumous catalog of his writings as a name for the works listed after the Physics. He does, however, recognize the branch of philosophy now called metaphysics. He calls it “first philosophy” and defines it as the discipline that studies “being as being.”
Aristotle’s contributions to the physical sciences are less impressive than his researches in the life sciences. In works such as On Generation and Corruption and On the Heavens, he presented a world-picture that included many features inherited from his pre-Socratic predecessors. From Empedocles (c. 490–430 BCE) he adopted the view that the universe is ultimately composed of different combinations of the four fundamental elements of earth, water, air, and fire. Each element is characterized by the possession of a unique pair of the four elementary qualities of heat, cold, wetness, and dryness: earth is cold and dry, water is cold and wet, air is hot and wet, and fire is hot and dry. Each element also has a natural place in an ordered cosmos, and each has an innate tendency to move toward this natural place. Thus, earthy solids naturally fall, while fire, unless prevented, rises ever higher. Other motions of the elements are possible but are considered “violent.” (A relic of Aristotle’s distinction is preserved in the modern- day contrast between natural and violent death.)
Aristotle’s vision of the cosmos also owes much to Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. As in that work, the Earth is at the centre of the universe, and around it the Moon, the Sun, and the other planets revolve in a succession of concentric crystalline spheres. The heavenly bodies are not compounds of the four terrestrial elements but are made up of a superior fifth element, or “quintessence.” In addition, the heavenly bodies have souls, or supernatural intellects, which guide them in their travels through the cosmos.
Even the best of Aristotle’s scientific work has now only a historical interest. The abiding value of treatises such as the Physics lies not in their particular scientific assertions but in their philosophical analyses of some of the concepts that pervade the physics of different eras— concepts such as place, time, causation, and determinism.

Philosophy of Science
In his Posterior Analytics, Aristotle applies the theory of the syllogism (a form of deductive reasoning) to scientific and epistemological ends (epistemology is the philosophy of the nature of knowledge). Scientific knowledge, he urges, must be built up out of demonstrations. A demonstration is a particular kind of syllogism, one whose premises can be traced back to principles that are true, necessary, universal, and immediately intuited. These first, self-evident principles are related to the conclusions of science as axioms are related to theorems: the axioms both necessitate and explain the truths that constitute a science. The most important axioms, Aristotle thought, would be those that define the proper subject matter of a science. Thus, among the axioms of geometry would be the definition of a tri- angle. For this reason much of the second book of the Posterior Analytics is devoted to definition.
The account of science in the Posterior Analytics is impressive, but it bears no resemblance to any of Aristotle’s own scientific works. Generations of scholars have tried in vain to find in his writings a single instance of a demon- strative syllogism. Moreover, the whole history of scientific endeavour contains no perfect instance of a demonstra- tive science.

全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载。

Sculpture with portraitlike features is characteristic of the Hellenistic Age and even more so of Roman times and is even encountered in isolated cases in the Greek art of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. This head of Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) is probably based on a bronze statue, which according to literary sources was erected after the death of the philosopher in the school he had founded in Athens, the Peripatos, or Lyceum. Of the total of 20 known replicas of this head, the one in Vienna is in the best state of preservation. It is believed to be a copy from the time of the Roman emperor Claudius in the middle of the 1st century AD and is probably the most faithful rendition of the lost Greek original. The large number of replicas demonstrates the popularity of this portrait in Roman times, when the colonnaded courtyards and libraries of Roman villas were decorated with portraits of Greek poets and philosophers in order to demonstrate the high educational level of their owners. The head of Aristotle is not a stylised image of a philosopher, but rather a portrait of pronounced individuality. The wide head with its prominent, relatively flat skull is further emphasised by the ample hair at the temples. In an attempt to conceal incipient baldness, individual strands of hair fall across the forehead, which characteristically for a philosopher is lined with wrinkles (“thinker’s brow”). A short beard frames the face. The treatment of the eyes and cheeks is primarily responsible for the discreetly suggested impression of advanced age. The heavy upper eyelids make the small eyes appeared tired, and the cheeks are somewhat hollow. The mouth, which is slightly turned down at the corners, gives the face an expression of superiority and perhaps even scepticism. For several years, Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great, and Alexander is said to have honoured his teacher with a portrait statue, presumably a work by his favourite sculptor, Lysippus of Sicyon. It cannot be proved, however, that the present portrait is based on that sculpture. © Kurt Gschwantler, Alfred Bernhard-Walcher, Manuela Laubenberger, Georg Plattner, Karoline Zhuber-Okrog, Masterpieces in the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities. A Brief Guide to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 2011.

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蓋乌斯·普林尼·塞孔杜斯（拉丁語：Gaius Plinius Secundus，23年－79年8月24日），常稱为老普林尼或大普林尼，古羅馬作家、博物学者、军人、政治家，以《自然史》(一译《博物志》)一書留名後世。其外甥为小普林尼。

老普林尼是罗马骑士与元老院议员加伊乌斯·凯奇利乌斯的外孫。他出生在科莫，而非訛傳的维罗纳。学过法律，任西班牙代理总督，后担任那不勒斯舰队司令。老普林尼在观察维苏威火山爆发时，不幸被火山噴出的毒氣毒死。

其一生著有7部著作，其中六本散失，僅剩片段。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/老普林尼)

1961年意大利邮票是小普林尼。

Pliny the Elder (Latin: Gaius Plinius Secundus) was a Roman savant and author of the celebrated Natural History, an encyclopaedic work of uneven accuracy that was an authority on scientific matters up to the Middle Ages. Seven writings are ascribed to Pliny, of which only the Natural History is extant. There survive, however, a few fragments of his earlier writings on grammar, a biography of Pomponius Secundus, a history of Rome, a study of the Roman campaigns in Germany, and a book on hurling the lance. These writings probably were lost in antiquity and have played no role in perpetuating Pliny’s fame, which rests solely on the Natural History.
The Natural History, divided into 37 libri, or “books,” was completed, except for finishing touches, in 77 CE. In the preface, dedicated to Titus (who became emperor shortly before Pliny’s death), Pliny justified the title and explained his purpose on utilitarian grounds as the study of “the nature of things, that is, life.” Heretofore, he continued, no one had attempted to bring together the older, scattered material that belonged to “encyclic culture” (enkyklios paideia, the origin of the word encyclopaedia). Disdaining high literary style and political mythology, Pliny adopted a plain style—but one with an unusually rich vocabulary—as best suited to his purpose. A novel feature of the Natural History is the care taken by Pliny in naming his sources, more than 100 of which are mentioned. Book I, in fact, is a summary of the remaining 36 books, listing the authors and sometimes the titles of the books (many of which are now lost) from which Pliny derived his material.
The Natural History properly begins with Book II, which is devoted to cosmology and astronomy. Here, as elsewhere, Pliny demonstrated the extent of his reading, especially of Greek texts. By the same token, however, he was sometimes careless in translating details, with the result that he distorted the meaning of many technical and mathematical passages. In Books III through VI, on the physical and historical geography of the ancient world, he gave much attention to major cities, some of which no longer exist.
Books VII through XI treat zoology, beginning with humans, then mammals and reptiles, fishes and other marine animals, birds, and insects. Pliny derived most of the biological data from Aristotle, while his own contributions were concerned with legendary animals and unsupported folklore.
In Books XII through XIX, on botany, Pliny came closest to making a genuine contribution to science. Although he drew heavily upon Theophrastus, he reported some independent observations, particularly those made during his travels in Germany. Pliny is one of the chief sources of modern knowledge of Roman gardens, early botanical writings, and the introduction into Italy of new horticultural and agricultural species. Book XVIII, on agriculture, is especially important for agricultural techniques such as crop rotation, farm management, and the names of legumes and other crop plants. His description of an ox-driven grain harvester in Gaul, long regarded by scholars as imaginary, was confirmed by the discovery in southern Belgium in 1958 of a 2nd-century stone relief depicting such an implement. Moreover, by recording the Latin synonyms of Greek plant names, he made most of the plants mentioned in earlier Greek writings identifiable.
Books XX through XXXII focus on medicine and drugs. Like many Romans, Pliny criticized luxury on moral and medical grounds. His random comments on diet and on the commercial sources and prices of the ingredients of costly drugs provide valuable evidence relevant to contemporary Romanlife.ThesubjectsofBooksXXXIIIthrough XXXVII include minerals, precious stones, and metals, especially those used by Roman craftsmen. In describing their uses, he referred to famous artists and their creations and to Roman architectural styles and technology.

Influence
Perhaps the most important of the pseudoscientific methods advocated by Pliny was the doctrine of signatures: a resemblance between the external appearance of a plant, animal, or mineral and the outward symptoms of a disease was thought to indicate the therapeutic usefulness of the plant. With the decline of the ancient world and the loss of the Greek texts on which Pliny had so heavily depended, the Natural History became a substitute for a general education. In the European Middle Ages many of the larger monastic libraries possessed copies of the work. These and many abridged versions ensured Pliny’s place in European literature. His authority was unchallenged, partly because of a lack of more reliable information and partly because his assertions were not and, in many cases, could not be tested.
However, Pliny’s influence diminished starting in the late 15th century , when writers began to question his statements.  By the end of the 17th century, the Natural History had been rejected by the leading scientists. Up to that time, however, Pliny’s influence, especially on nonscientific writers, was undiminished. He was, for example, almost certainly known to William Shakespeare and John Milton. Although Pliny’s work was never again accepted as an authority in science, 19th-century Latin scholars conclusively demonstrated the historical importance of the Natural History as one of the greatest literary monu- ments of classical antiquity.

全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载。

ngsunyu

克勞狄烏斯·托勒密（古希臘語：Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος；拉丁語：Claudius Ptolemaeus，约100年－170年，又译托勒玫或多禄某）是一位學者，同时也是数学家、天文学家、地理学家、占星家，公元168年于埃及亚历山大港逝世。身為罗马公民的托勒密生活在埃及行省的亚历山大港，并以希腊语写作，歷史上關於他的記述不多，最為著名的便是他所提出的“地心說”。14世纪時的天文学家 Theodore Meliteniotes（英语：Theodore Meliteniotes）宣称托勒密出生于埃及的托勒密赫米歐（英语：Ptolemais Hermiou）。这个说法距离托勒密生活的年代已有一段時間，因此目前没有证据显示出他曾在亚历山大港以外的任何地方居住過。

托勒密著有许多科學著作，其中有三部對拜占庭、伊斯蘭世界以及歐洲的科學發展影響頗大。第一部是《天文學大成》（古希臘語：Η μεγάλη Σύνταξις，意謂「巨著」）。第二部是《地理學指南》，是一部探討希臘羅馬地區的地理知識的典籍。而第三部是有關占星學的《占星四書》，書中嘗試改進占星術中繪製星圖的方法，以便融入當時亞里士多德的自然哲學。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/克劳狄乌斯·托勒密)

Ptolemy (Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus) was an Egyptian astronomer, mathematician, and geographer of Greek descent who flourished in Alexandria during the 2nd century CE. In several fields his writings represent the culminating achievement of Greco-Roman science, particularly his geocentric (Earth-centred) model of the universe now known as the Ptolemaic system.
Virtually nothing is known about Ptolemy’s life except what can be inferred from his writings. His first major astronomical work, the Almagest, was completed about 150 CE and contains reports of astronomical observations that Ptolemy had made over the preceding quarter of a century. The size and content of his subsequent literary production suggests that he lived until about 170 CE.
The book that is now generally known as the Almagest (from a hybrid of Arabic and Greek, “the greatest”) was called by Ptolemy Hē mathēmatikē syntaxis(TheMathematical Collection) because he believed that its subject, the motions of the heavenly bodies, could be explained in mathematical terms. The opening chapters present empirical arguments for the basic cosmological framework within which Ptolemy worked. Earth, he argued, is a stationary sphere at the centre of a vastly larger celestial sphere that revolves at a perfectly uniform rate around Earth, carrying with it the stars, planets, Sun, and Moon—thereby causing their daily risings and settings. Through the course of a year the Sun slowly traces out a great circle, known as the ecliptic, against the rotation of the celestial sphere. The Moon and planets similarly travel backward against the “fixed stars” found in the ecliptic. Hence, the planets were also known as “wandering stars.” The fundamental assumption of the Almagest is that the apparently irregular movements of the heavenly bodies are in reality combinations of regular, uniform, circular motions.
How much of the Almagest is original is difficult to determine because almost all of the preceding technical astronomical literature is now lost. Ptolemy credited Hipparchus (mid-2nd century BCE) with essential elements of his solar theory, as well as parts of his lunar theory, while denying that Hipparchus constructed planetary models. Ptolemy made only a few vague and disparaging remarks regarding theoretical work over the intervening three centuries; yet the study of the planets undoubtedly made great strides during that interval. Moreover, Ptolemy’s veracity, especially as an observer, has been controversial since the time of the astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). Brahe pointed out that solar observations Ptolemy claimed to have made in 141 BCE are definitely not genuine, and there are strong arguments for doubting that Ptolemy independently observed the more than 1,000 stars listed in his star catalog. What is not disputed, however, is the mastery of mathematical analysis that Ptolemy exhibited.
Ptolemy was preeminently responsible for the geocentric cosmology that prevailed in the Islamic world and in medieval Europe. This was not due to the Almagest so much as a later treatise, Hypotheseis tōn planōmenōn (Planetary Hypotheses). In this work he proposed what is now called the Ptolemaic system, a unified system in which each heavenly body is attached to its own sphere and the set of spheres nested so that it extends without gaps from the Earth to the celestial sphere. The numerical tables in the Almagest (which enabled planetary positions and other celestial phenomena to be calculated for arbitrary dates) had a profound influence on medieval astronomy, in part through a separate, revised version of the tables that Ptolemy published as Procheiroi kanones (Handy Tables). Ptolemy taught later astronomers how to use dated, quantitative observations to revise cosmological models.
Ptolemy also attempted to place astrology on a sound basis in Apotelesmatika (Astrological Influences), later known as the Tetrabiblos for its four volumes. He believed that astrology is a legitimate, though inexact, science that describes the physical effects of the heavens on terrestrial life. Ptolemy accepted the basic validity of the traditional astrological doctrines, but he revised the details to reconcile the practice with an Aristotelian conception of nature, matter, and change. Of Ptolemy’s writings, the Tetrabiblos is the most foreign to modern readers, who do not accept astral prognostication and a cosmology driven by the interplay of basic qualities such as hot, cold, wet, and dry.

全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载。

ngsunyu

盖伦（129年－200年）是一位古罗马的医学家及哲學家。他的见解和理论在他身后的一千多年里是欧洲起支配性的医学理论。出生于别迦摩，逝世于罗马。

盖伦将希波克拉底的医学理论一直传递到文艺复兴。他的《希波克拉底的元素》描写了基于四元素说上的四气说的哲学系统。从这个理论上他发展了自己的理论。他对瑟尔苏的用拉丁语写的反对的理论基本上一字不提。

盖伦最主要的著作是他的17卷的“人体各部位的作用”。此外他还写了关于哲学和语言学的著作。他的著作一共有22卷。

盖伦的理论与柏拉图的一致，他认为世界是由一个造世者故意建造的——这是为什么他的著作后来这样容易被基督教徒和穆斯林接受。他最基本的理论是生命来自于“气”，后来的作家将盖伦的气与灵魂相结合。脑中的“精气”（Pneuma psychicon）决定运动、感知和感觉。心的“活气”（Pneuma zoticon）控制体内的血液和体温。肝的“动气”（Pneuma physicon）控制营养和新陈代谢。

盖伦的许多知识来自于他对活体动物的解剖。他的一个方式是公开地解剖活猪。他切断猪的神经来显示它们的作用，最后他切断喉神经（今天也称为盖伦神经）猪就不叫了。他系住活动物的输尿管来显示尿来自于肾，他破坏脊椎来显示瘫痪的原因。

从今天的角度来看，盖伦的理论部分是对的，部分是错的。他证明动脉是送血的，而不是送空气的，此外他首次研究了神经的作用以及脑和心的作用。他还认为思考是脑的作用，而不是像亚里斯多德所说的那样是心的作用。

但从今天的角度出发盖伦的其它许多观点是错的。他没有认识到血液循环而认为静脉系统与动脉系统是无关的。这个观点一直到17世纪才被威廉·哈维纠正。由于他的大多数解剖知识是从解剖猪、狗和猴得来的，他错误地以为人也有迷网，一个在食草动物中常见的血管节。他还反对使用止血带来停止出血的疗法而坚持使用放血疗法。

直到16世纪盖伦在欧洲是一个医学权威。学者不对实物进行观察而相信盖伦已经描述了一切可以描述的事物。放血疗法成为一个基本疗法。第一个严肃地改变这个状况的是维萨里。

盖伦的著作也是波斯学者如阿维森纳等的主要学术来源。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/盖伦)

Galen of Pergamum (Latin: Galenus) was a Greek physician, writer, and philosopher who exercised a dominant influence on medical theory and practice in Europe from the Middle Ages until the mid-17th century. His authority in the Byzantine world and the Muslim Middle East was similarly long-lived.


Anatomical and Medical Studies
Galen regarded anatomy as the foundation of medical knowledge, and he frequently dissected and experimented on such lower animals as the Barbary ape (or African monkey), pigs, sheep, and goats. Galen’s advocacy of dissection, both to improve surgical skills and for research purposes, formed part of his self-promotion, but there is no doubt that he was an accurate observer. He distinguished seven pairs of cranial nerves, described the valves of the heart, and observed the structural differences between arteries and veins. One of his most important demonstrations was that the arteries carry blood, not air, as had been taught for 400 years. Notable also were his vivisection experiments, such as tying off the recurrent laryngeal nerve to show that the brain controls the voice, performing a series of transections of the spinal cord to establish the functions of the spinal nerves, and tying off the ureters to demonstrate kidney and bladder functions. Galen was seriously hampered by the prevailing social taboo against dissecting human corpses, however, and the inferences he made about human anatomy based on his dissections of animals often led him into errors. His anatomy of the uterus, for example, is largely that of the dog’s.
Galen’s physiology was a mixture of ideas taken from the philosophers Plato and Aristotle as well as from the physician Hippocrates, whom Galen revered as the fount of all medical learning. Galen viewed the body as consisting of three connected systems: the brain and nerves, which are responsible for sensation and thought; the heart and arteries, responsible for life-giving energy; and the liver and veins, responsible for nutrition and growth. According to Galen, blood is formed in the liver and is then carried by the veins to all parts of the body, where it is used up as nutriment or is transformed into flesh and other substances. A small amount of blood seeps through the lungs between the pulmonary artery and pulmonary veins, thereby becoming mixed with air, and then seeps from the right to the left ventricle of the heart through minute pores in the wall separating the two chambers. A small proportion of this blood is further refined in a network of nerves at the base of the skull (in reality found only in ungulates) and the brain to make psychic pneuma, a subtle material that is the vehicle of sensation. Galen’s physiological theory proved extremely seductive, and few possessed the skills needed to challenge it in succeeding centuries.
Building on earlier Hippocratic conceptions, Galen believed that human health requires an equilibrium between the four main bodily fluids, or humours—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Each of the humours is built up from the four elements and displays two of the four primary qualities: hot, cold, wet, and dry. Unlike Hippocrates, Galen argued that humoral imbalances can be located in specific organs, as well as in the body as a whole. This modification of the theory allowed doctors to make more precise diagnoses and to prescribe specific remedies to restore the body’s balance. As a continuation of earlier Hippocratic conceptions, Galenic physiology became a powerful influence in medicine for the next 1,400 years.
Galen was both a universal genius and a prolific writer. About 300 titles of works by him are known, of which about 150 survive wholly or in part. He was perpetually inquisitive, even in areas remote from medicine, such as linguistics, and he was an important logician who wrote major studies of scientific method. Galen was also a skilled polemicist and an incorrigible publicist of his own genius, and these traits, combined with the enormous range of his writings, help to explain his subsequent fame and influence.

Influence
Galen’s writings achieved wide circulation during his life- time, and copies of some of his works survive that were written within a generation of his death. By 500 CE his works were being taught and summarized at Alexandria, and his theories were already crowding out those of others
in the medical handbooks of the Byzantine world. Greek manuscripts began to be collected and translated by enlightened Arabs in the 9th century, and in about 850 Hunayn ibn Ishāq, an Arab physician at the court of Baghdad, prepared an annotated list of 129 works of Galen that he and his followers had translated from Greek into Arabic or Syriac. Learned medicine in the Arabic world thus became heavily based upon the commentary, exposition, and understanding of Galen.
Galen’s influence was initially almost negligible in western Europe except for drug recipes, but from the late 11th century Hunayn’s translations, commentaries on them by Arab·physicians, and sometimes the original Greek writings themselves were translated into Latin. These Latin versions came to form the basis of medical education in the new medieval universities. From about 1490, Italian humanists felt the need to prepare new Latin versions of Galen directly from Greek manuscripts in order to free his texts from medieval preconceptions and misunderstandings. Galen’s works were first printed in Greek in their entirety in 1525, and printings in Latin swiftly followed. These texts offered a different picture from that of the Middle Ages, one that emphasized Galen as a clinician, a diagnostician, and above all, an anatomist. His new followers stressed his methodical techniques of identifying and curing illness, his independent judgment, and his cautious empiricism. Galen’s injunctions to investigate the body were eagerly followed, since physicians wished to repeat the experiments and observations that he had recorded. Paradoxically, this soon led to the overthrow of Galen’s authority as an anatomist. In 1543 the Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius showed that Galen’s anatomy of the body was more animal than human in some of its aspects, and it became clear that Galen and his medieval followers had made many errors. Galen’s notions of physiology, by contrast, lasted for a further century, until the English physician William Harvey correctly explained the circulation of the blood. The renewal and then the overthrow of the Galenic tradition in the Renaissance had been an important element in the rise of modern science.

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ngsunyu

阿布·阿里·侯赛因·本·阿卜杜拉·本·哈桑·本·阿里·本·西那（阿拉伯文：أبو علي الحسين بن عبد الله بن الحسن بن علي بن سينا，波斯文：ابوعلی حسین بن عبدالله بن حسن بن علي بن سینا；980年－1037年6月），一般简称伊本·西那（阿拉伯文、波斯文：ابن سينا），欧洲人尊其为阿维森纳（阿维真纳）（希腊文：Aβιτζιανός，拉丁文：Avicenna），塔吉克人，生于布哈拉附近。中世纪波斯哲学家、医学家、自然科学家、文学家。

伊本·西那青年时曾任宫廷御医；二十岁时，因王朝覆灭而迁居花剌子模；十一年后，因政治原因逃至伊朗。他博学多才，有多方面的成就。医学上，丰富了内科知识，重视解剖，所著《医典（英语：The Canon of Medicine）》是十七世纪以前亚洲、欧洲广大地区的主要医学教科书和参考书。哲学上，他是阿拉伯/波斯亚里士多德学派的主要代表之一。持二元论，并创造了自己的学说。肯定物质世界是永恒的、不可创造的，同时又承认真主是永恒的。主张灵魂不灭，也不轮回，反对死者复活之说。主要著作还有《治疗论（英语：The Book of Healing）》、《知识论》等。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/伊本·西那)

Avicenna (Arabic: Ibn Sīnā) was an Iranian physician and the most famous and influential of the philosopher-scientists of Islam. He was particularly noted for his contributions in the fields of Aristotelian philosophy and medicine. He composed the Kitāb al-shifā’ (Book of Healing), a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and Al-Qānūn f ī al-tibb (The Canon of Medicine), which is among the most famous books in the history of medicine.
Avicenna’s Book of Healing is probably the largest work of its kind ever written by one man. It discusses logic, the natural sciences, including psychology, the quadrivium (geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music), and metaphysics, but there is no real exposition of ethics or of politics. His thought in this work owes a great deal to Aristotle but also to other Greek influences and to Neoplatonism.
The Canon of Medicine is the most famous single book in the history of medicine in both East and West. It is a systematic encyclopaedia based for the most part on the achievements of Greek physicians of the Roman imperial age and on other Arabic works and, to a lesser extent, on his own experience (his own clinical notes were lost during his journeys). Occupied during the day with his duties at court as both physician and administrator, Avicenna spent almost every night with his students composing these and other works and carrying out general philosophical and scientific discussions related to them.
Avicenna’s Book of Healing was translated partially into Latin in the 12th century, and the complete Canon appeared in the same century. These translations and others spread the thought of Avicenna far and wide in the West. His thought, blended with that of St. Augustine, the Christian philosopher and theologian, was a basic ingredient in the thought of many of the medieval Scholastics, especially in the Franciscan schools. In medicine, the Canon became the medical authority for several centuries, and Avicenna enjoyed an undisputed place of honour equaled only by the early Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen. In the East his dominating influence in medicine, philosophy, and theology has lasted over the ages and is still alive within the circles of Islamic thought.

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罗吉尔·培根（英语：Roger Bacon，1214年－1294年），英国方济各会修士、哲学家、炼金术士。他学识渊博，著作涉及当时所知的各门类知识，并对阿拉伯世界的科学进展十分熟悉。提倡经验主义，主张通过实验获得知识。

培根受到的科学教育和他自己的研究使他看到了当时学术争论的很多缺陷：没有教师懂得希腊文，使得他们仅仅通过低劣的翻译来了解亚里士多德的思想。物理学并不像亚里士多德提倡的通过实验来研究，而是对典籍进行争论。目睹这一切的培根反对这种空洞的争论，提倡实验的重要性，并且出于他直率的个性，他到处宣扬他认为正确的方法，猛烈抨击他所不同意的，这给他带来了很多的麻烦。1256年培根一向抨击的康沃尔的理查德开始担任英国方济各会的首脑。不久，培根被转到法国的一所修道院。此后十年他只能通过写信和朋友们交流。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/罗吉尔·培根)

Roger Bacon, who was also known as Doctor Mirabilis (Latin for “Wonderful Teacher”), was an English Franciscan philosopher and educational reformer, as well as a major medieval proponent of experimental science. Bacon studied mathematics, astronomy, optics, alchemy, and languages. He was the first European to describe in detail the process of making gunpowder, and he proposed flying machines and motorized ships and carriages. Bacon (as he himself complacently remarked) displayed a prodigious energy and zeal in the pursuit of experimental science; indeed, his studies were talked about everywhere and eventually won him a place in popular literature as a kind of wonder worker. Bacon therefore represents a historically precocious expression of the empirical spirit of experimental science, even though his actual practice of it seems to have been exaggerated.

By 1257, Bacon had entered into the Order of Friars Minor, a branch of the Franciscan Christian religious order. However, he soon fell ill and felt (as he wrote) forgotten by everyone and all but buried. Furthermore, his feverish activity, his amazing credulity, his superstition, and his vocal contempt for those not sharing his interests displeased his superiors in the order and brought him under severe discipline. He appealed to Pope Clement IV, arguing that a more accurate experimental knowledge of nature would be of great value in confirming the Christian faith. Bacon felt that his proposals would be of great importance for the welfare of the church and of the universities.
The pope desired to become more fully informed of these projects. In obedience to the pope’s command, Bacon set to work and in a remarkably short time had dispatched the Opus majus (“Great Work”), the Opus minus (“Lesser Work”), and the Opus tertium (“Third Work”). He had to do this secretly, and even when the irregularity of his conduct attracted the attention of his superiors and the terrible weapons of spiritual coercion were brought to bear upon him, he was deterred from explaining his position by the papal command of secrecy. Under the circumstances, his achievement was truly astounding. The Opus majus was an effort to persuade the pope of the urgent necessity and broad utility of the reforms that he proposed. But the death of Clement in 1268 extinguished Bacon’s dreams of gaining for the sciences their rightful place in the curriculum of university studies.

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ngsunyu

列奥纳多·达·芬奇（意大利語：Leonardo da Vinci；儒略历1452年4月15日－1519年5月2日)，又譯达文西，全名李奧納多·迪·瑟皮耶罗·达·芬奇（Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci，意为「文西城皮耶羅先生之子──李奧納多」），是意大利文藝復興時期的一个博學者：在繪畫、音樂、建築、數學、幾何學、解剖學、生理學、動物學、植物學、天文學、氣象學、地質學、地理學、物理學、光學、力學、發明、土木工程等領域都有顯著的成就。这使他成为文艺复兴时期人文主义的代表人物，也使得他成為文藝復興時期典型的藝術家，也是歷史上最著名的畫家之一，與米開朗基羅和拉斐尔並稱文艺复兴三杰。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/列奥纳多·达·芬奇)

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–06) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time.
The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed in his lifetime and that, filtered by historical criticism, has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behaviour. An artist by disposition and endowment, he considered his eyes to be his main avenue to knowledge; to Leonardo, sight was man’s highest sense because it alone conveyed the facts of experience immediately, correctly, and with certainty. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge. Saper vedere (“knowing how to see”) became the great theme of his studies. He applied his creativity to every realm in which graphic representation is used: He was a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he went even beyond that. He used his superb intellect, unusual powers of observation, and mastery of the art of drawing to study nature itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his dual pursuits of art and science to flourish.

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Anatomical Studies and Drawings
Leonardo’s fascination with anatomical studies reveals a prevailing artistic interest of the time. In his own 1435 treatise Della pittura (“On Painting”), theorist Leon Battista Alberti urged painters to construct the human figure as it exists in nature, supported by the skeleton and musculature, and only then clothed in skin. The date of Leonardo’s initial involvement with anatomical study is not known nor can it be determined exactly when Leonardo began to perform dissections, but it might have been several years after he first moved to Milan, at the time a centre of medical investigation. His study of anatomy, originally pursued for his training as an artist, had grown by the 1490s into an independent area of research. As his sharp eye uncovered the structure of the human body, Leonardo became fascinated by the the figuraistrumentaledell’omo(“man’sinstrumental figure”), and he sought to comprehend its physical working as a creation of nature. Over the following two decades, he did practical work in anatomy on the dissection table in Milan, then at hospitals in Florence and Rome, and in Pavia, where he collaborated with the physician anatomist Marcantonio della Torre. By his own count Leonardo dissected 30 corpses in his lifetime.
Leonardo’s early anatomical studies dealt chiefly with the skeleton and muscles. Yet even at the outset, he combined anatomical with physiological research. From observing the static structure of the body, Leonardo proceeded to study the role of individual parts of the body in mechanical activity. This led him finally to the study of the internal organs; among them he probed most deeply into the brain, heart, and lungs as the “motors” of the senses and of life. His findings from these studies were recorded in the famous anatomical drawings, which are among the most significant achievements of Renaissance science. The drawings are based on a connection between natural and abstract representation. He represented parts of the body in transparent layers that afford an “insight” into the organ by using sections in perspective, reproducing muscles as “strings,” indicating hidden parts by dotted lines, and devising a hatching system. The genuine value of these dimostrazione lay in their ability to synthesize a multiplicity of individual experiences at the dissecting table and make the data immediately and accurately visible. As Leonardo proudly emphasized, these drawings were superior to descriptive words. The wealth of Leonardo’s anatomical studies that have survived forged the basic principles of modern scientific illustration. It is worth noting, however, that during his lifetime, Leonardo’s medical investigations remained private. He did not consider himself a professional in the field of anatomy, and he neither taught nor published his findings.
Although he kept his anatomical studies to himself, Leonardo did publish some of his observations on human proportion. Working with the mathematician Luca Pacioli, he considered the proportional theories of Vitruvius, the 1st-century BCE Roman architect, as presented in his treatise De architectura (On Architecture). Imposing the principles of geometry on the configuration of the human body, Leonardo demonstrated that the ideal proportion of the human figure corresponds with the forms of the circle and the square. In his illustration of this theory, the so-called Vitruvian Man, Leonardo demonstrated that when a man places his feet firmly on the ground and stretches out his arms, he can be contained within the four lines of a square, but when in a spreadeagle position, he can be inscribed in a circle.

Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (“cosmography of the microcosm”). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy, in microcosm, for the workings of the universe. Leonardo wrote: “Man has been called by the ancients a lesser world, and indeed the name is well applied; because, as man is composed of earth, water, air, and fire . . . this body of the earth is similar.” He compared the human skeleton to rocks (“supports of the earth”) and the expansion of the lungs in breathing to the ebb and flow of the oceans.

Mechanics and Cosmology
According to Leonardo’s observations, the study of mechanics, with which he became quite familiar as an architect and engineer, also reflected the workings of nature. Throughout his life Leonardo was an inventive builder. He thoroughly understood the principles of mechanics of his time and contributed in many ways to advancing them. His two Madrid notebooks deal extensively with his theory of mechanics; the first was written in the 1490s, and the sec- ond was written between 1503 and 1505. Their importance lay less in their description of specific machines or work tools than in their use of demonstration models to explain the basic mechanical principles and functions employed in buildingmachinery.Asinhisanatomicaldrawings,Leonardo developed definite principles of graphic representation— stylization, patterns, and diagrams—that offer a precise demonstration of the object in question.
Leonardo was especially intrigued by problems of friction and resistance, and with each of the mechanical elements he presented—such as screw threads, gears, hydraulic jacks, swiveling devices, and transmission gears—drawings took precedence over the written word. Throughout his career he also was intrigued by the mechanical potential of motion. This led him to design a machine with a differential transmission, a moving fortress that resembles a modern tank, and a flying machine. His “helical airscrew” (c. 1487) almost seems a prototype for the modern helicopter, but, like the other vehicles Leonardo designed, it presented a singular problem: it lacked an adequate source of power to provide propulsion and lift.
Wherever Leonardo probed the phenomena of nature, he recognized the existence of primal mechanical forces that govern the shape and function of the universe. This is seen in his studies of the flight of birds, in which his youthful idea of the feasibility of a flying apparatus took shape and that led to exhaustive research into the element of air; in his studies of water, the vetturale della natura (“conveyor of nature”), in which he was as much concerned with the physical properties of water as with its laws of motion and currents; in his research on the laws of growth of plants and trees, as well as the geologic structure of earth and hill formations; and finally in his observation of air currents, which evoked the image of the flame of a candle or the picture of a wisp of cloud and smoke. In his drawings based on the numerous experiments he undertook, Leonardo found a stylized form of representation that was uniquely his own, especially in his studies of whirlpools. He managed to break down a phenomenon into its component parts—the traces of water or eddies of the whirlpool—yet at the same time preserve the total picture, creating both an analytic and a synthetic vision.

Leonardo as Artist Scientist
In an era that often compared the process of divine creation to the activity of an artist, Leonardo reversed the analogy, using art as his own means to approximate the mysteries of creation, asserting that, through the science of painting, “the mind of the painter is transformed into a copy of the divine mind, since it operates freely in creating many kinds of animals, plants, fruits, landscapes, countrysides, ruins, and awe-inspiring places.” With this sense of the artist’s high calling, Leonardo approached the vast realm of nature to probe its secrets. His utopian idea of transmitting in encyclopaedic form the knowledge thus won was still bound up with medieval Scholastic conceptions; however, the results of his research were among the first great achievements of the forthcoming age’s thinking because they were based to an unprecedented degree on the principle of experience.

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《维特鲁威人》 （意大利語：Uomo vitruviano）是达·芬奇在1490年前後创作的世界著名素描。根据约1500年前维特鲁威在《建筑十书》中的描述，达·芬奇努力绘出了完美比例的人体。这幅由钢笔和墨水绘制的手稿，描绘了一个男人在同一位置上的“十”字型和“火”字型的姿态，并同时被分别嵌入到一个矩形和一个圆形当中。这幅画有时也被称作卡侬比例或男子比例，现藏於意大利威尼斯的学院美术馆中，和大部分纸质作品一样，它只会偶尔被展出。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/维特鲁威人)

《维特鲁威人》出现在三枚1938年意大利邮票上。这 枚 《维特鲁威人》是否与Luigi Morera教授有关，正在与他的家人一起研究。 在结果确定之前，邮戳将保持隐密状态。

ngsunyu

尼古拉·哥白尼（拉丁語：Nicolaus Copernicus，波蘭語：Mikołaj Kopernik，1473年2月19日－1543年5月24日）是文艺复兴时期的波兰数学家、天文学家，他提倡日心说模型，提到太陽為宇宙的中心。1543年哥白尼临终前发表了《天體運行論》一般認為他著的是現代天文學的起步點。它开启了哥白尼革命，并对推动科学革命作出了重要贡献。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/尼古拉·哥白尼)

哥白尼出生于皇家普魯士，该地区自1466年隶属于波兰王国波兰皇家普魯士托伦市（位於今波兰庫亞維-波美拉尼亞省）。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/托伦)

Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik) proposed that the planets have the Sun as the fixed point to which their motions are to be referred; that the Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its own axis; and that very slow, long-term changes in the direction of this axis account for the precession of the equinoxes. This representation of the heavens is usually called the heliocentric, or “Sun-centred,” system—derived from the Greek helios, meaning “Sun.”
Copernicus’s theory had important consequences for later thinkers of the scientific revolution, including such major figures as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, and Newton. Copernicus probably hit upon his main idea sometime between 1508 and 1514, and during those years he wrote a manuscript usually called the Commentariolus (“Little Commentary”). However, the book that contains the final version of his theory, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi (“Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs”), did not appear in print until 1543, the year of his death.

Science of the Stars
In Copernicus’s period, astrology and astronomy were considered subdivisions of a common subject called the “science of the stars,” whose main aim was to provide a description of the arrangement of the heavens as well as the theoretical tools and tables of motions that would permit accurate construction of horoscopes and annual prognostications. At this time the terms astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician were virtually interchangeable; they generally denoted anyone who studied the heavens using mathematical techniques. Furthermore, practitioners of astrology were in disagreement about everything, from the divisions of the zodiac to the minutest observations to the order of the planets; there was also a long-standing disagreement concerning the status of the planetary models.
From antiquity, astronomical modeling was governed by the premise that the planets move with uniform angular motion on fixed radii at a constant distance from their centres of motion. Two types of models derived from this premise. The first, represented by that of Aristotle, held that the planets are carried around the centre of the universe embedded in unchangeable, material, invisible spheres at fixed distances. Since all planets have the same centre of motion, the universe is made of nested, concentric spheres with no gaps between them. As a predictive model, this account was of limited value. Among other things, it had the distinct disadvantage that it could not account for variations in the apparent brightness of the planets since the distances from the centre were always the same.

A second tradition, deriving from Claudius Ptolemy, solved this problem by postulating three mechanisms: uniformly revolving, off-centre circles called eccentrics; epicycles, little circles whose centres moved uniformly on the circumference of circles of larger radius (deferents); and equants. The equant, however, broke with the main assumption of ancient astronomy because it separated the condition of uniform motion from that of constant distance from the centre. A planet viewed from a specific point at the centre of its orbit would appear to move sometimes faster, sometimes slower. As seen from the Earth and removed a certain distance from the specific centre point, the planet would also appear to move nonuniformly. Only from the equant, an imaginary point at a calculated distance from the Earth, would the planet appear to move uniformly. A planet-bearing sphere revolving around an equant point will wobble; situate one sphere within another, and the two will collide, disrupting the heavenly order. In the 13th century a group of Persian astronomers at Marāgheh discovered that, by combining two uniformly revolving epicycles to generate an oscillating point that would account for variations in distance, they could devise a model that produced the equalized motion without referring to an equant point. This insight was the starting point for Copernicus’s attempt to resolve the conflict raised by wobbling physical spheres.

An Orderly Universe
In the Commentariolus, Copernicus postulated that, if the Sun is assumed to be at rest and if the Earth is assumed to be in motion, then the remaining planets fall into an orderly relationship whereby their sidereal periods increase from the Sun as follows: Mercury (88 days), Venus (225 days), Earth (1 year), Mars (1.9 years), Jupiter (12 years), and Saturn (30 years). This theory did resolve the disagreement about the ordering of the planets but, in turn, raised new problems. To accept the theory’s premises, one had to abandon much of Aristotelian natural philosophy and develop a new explanation for why heavy bodies fall to a moving Earth. It was also necessary to explain how a transient body like the Earth, filled with meteorological phenomena, pestilence, and wars, could be part of a perfect and imperishable heaven. In addition, Copernicus was working with many observations that he had inherited from antiquity and whose trustworthiness he could not verify. In constructing a theory for the precession of the equinoxes, for example, he was trying to build a model based upon very small, long-term effects. Also, his theory for Mercury was left with serious incoherencies.
Any of these considerations alone could account for Copernicus’s delay in publishing his work. (He remarked in the preface to De revolutionibus that he had chosen to withhold publication not for merely the nine years recommended by the Roman poet Horace but for 36 years, four times that period.) When a description of the main elements of the heliocentric hypothesis was first published in 1540 and 1541 in the Narratio Prima (“First Narration”), it was not under Copernicus’s own name but under that of the 25-year-old Georg Rheticus, a Lutheran from the University of Wittenberg, Germany, who stayed with Copernicus at Frauenburg for about two and a half years, between 1539 and 1542. The Narratio prima was, in effect, a joint production of Copernicus and Rheticus, something of a “trial balloon” for the main work. It provided a summary of the theoretical principles contained in the manuscript of De revolutionibus, emphasized their value for computing new planetary tables, and presented Copernicus as following admiringly in the footsteps of Ptolemy even as he broke fundamentally with his ancient predecessor. It also provided what was missing from the Commentariolus: a basis for accepting the claims of the new theory.
Both Rheticus and Copernicus knew that they could not definitively rule out all possible alternatives to the heliocentric theory. But they could underline what Copernicus’s theory provided that others could not: a singular method for ordering the planets and for calculating the relative distances of the planets from the Sun. Rheticus compared this new universe to a well-tuned musical instrument and to the interlocking wheel-mechanisms of a clock. In the preface to De revolutionibus, Copernicus used an image from Horace’s Ars poetica (“Art of Poetry”). The the- ories of his predecessors, he wrote, were like a human figure in which the arms, legs, and head were put together in the form of a disorderly monster. His own representation of the universe, in contrast, was an orderly whole in which a displacement of any part would result in a disruption of the whole. In effect, a new criterion of scientific adequacy was advanced together with the new theory of the universe.

全文可在 www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/hundred-scientists.pdf 下载。

ngsunyu

在1491-92年的冬季学期，哥白尼以Nicolaus Nicolai de Thuronia的名字和兄弟安德鲁一同被克拉科夫大学所录取（也就是如今的亞捷隆大學）。哥白尼就读的是艺术系，时间从1491年秋天到大致1495年的夏天或秋天。当时正是克拉科夫大学的天文学和数学学院如日中天的时候，这里的学习经历为他将来在数学方面所取得的成绩奠定了基础。按照后来Jan Brożek的一种可靠说法，哥白尼成为了阿尔伯特·布鲁楚斯基（Albert Brudzewski）的学生，后者在当时（1491年）是一名亚里士多德哲学教授，但是他在大学校外私下里教授天文学；哥白尼就此熟悉了布鲁楚斯基广泛阅读的评论文章，参加了许多讲座。

哥白尼在克拉科夫的学习经历帮他奠定了数学天文学方面的坚实基础，校方教授的课程包括数学、几何学、几何光学、宇宙结构学、天文学的理论和计算等，使他掌握了亚里士多德有关哲学和自然科学的著作《形而上学》（De coelo, Metaphysics），这些都激发了他的学习兴趣，并实现对人文文化的精深把握。在克拉科夫求学的过程中，哥白尼通过参加大学讲座以及独立阅读著作来拓展自己的知识，诸如古希腊数学家欧几里德和阿拉伯天文学家哈里·阿本拉吉（英语：Haly Abenragel）的著作，阿方索星表（英语：Alfonsine Tables），德国数学家、天文学家雷格蒙塔努斯（约翰·缪勒）的《方位册》（Tabulae directionum），等等。在这期间的阅读资料，其中还标注有他最早的科学笔记，现在部分保存在瑞典乌普萨拉大学。在克拉科夫，哥白尼开始搜集大量的天文学方面的藏书，后在17世纪50年代的大洪水时代，被瑞典当作战利品运往本国，现在瑞典乌普萨拉大学图书馆收藏。

哥白尼在克拉科夫的四年学习生活为他重要才能的发展发挥了重要作用，并促使他在天文学的两大流行体系亚里士多德的同心球面学说和托勒密的偏心圆和本轮理论进行逻辑比较分析，对之进行扬弃之后，构建出哥白尼自己对于宇宙结构的理论的第一步。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/尼古拉·哥白尼)

克拉科夫大學院（波蘭語：Collegium Maius）的哥白尼纪念碑。克拉科夫大學院是亞捷隆大學最古老的建築，其歷史可以追溯至14世紀。雅盖隆大学图书馆建于1364年，现有藏书650万部，是波兰最大的图书馆之一。藏有大量中世纪手稿，其中包括哥白尼《天体运行论》的原稿。(zh.m.wikipedia.org/克拉科夫大學院)&(zh.m.wikipedia.org/亞捷隆大學)