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Since its founding, Centaurus has served as a journal of reference for the history of astronomy. To celebrate this tradition, our first virtual issue assembles ten articles from our archives and one article that is in currently in press. Together, these articles show off the range of contributions in history of astronomy that have appeared in the pages of Centaurus from the 1950s onward. Articles...
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Studia theologica > 2018 > 1 > 143-164
The paper focuses on the astronomical interests of one of most well-known fi-gures of the end of the tenth century Gerbert of Reims (ca. 940/50–1003; a monk in Aurillac, scholasticus in Reims, abbot in Bobbio, illegitimate archbishop of Reims, archbishop of Ravenna and Pope Sylvester II). The paper analyses two of Gerbert’s letters. The first of them (De sphaera addressed to Constantine of Fleury)...
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Konštantínove listy > 2018 > 11 > 1 > 67 - 78
This paper focuses on the letter, written by Gerbert of Aurillac (Pope Sylvester II) in the late 980s, which was addressed to Brother Adam who is otherwise unknown to us from other sources. Gerbert’s text deals with the problems of timekeeping and it naturally uses professional astronomical and geographical terminology and concepts which were necessary for timekeeping during this period. Although...
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Historia Mathematica > 2013 > 40 > 3 > 235-261
The paper presents a critical review of the iterative process used by Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Wābkanawī (Iran, Maragha, ca. 1270–1320) in order to compute the annular solar eclipse of 30 January 1283 from the solar and lunar parameter values obtained by Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī (Maragha, 1260–1274). The position of this prediction in medieval astronomy will also be discussed. Wābkanawī uses an...
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The Venerable Bede used observable proofs and mathematical calculations in his early 8th-century treatise De temporum ratione to teach the astronomical principles that inform the calculation of the date of Easter. This suggests that the seeds of the modern scientific method might be found before the 12th century in the educational practices of the early medieval monasteries.
