The New International Encyclopædia/Peuerbach, Georg von

PEUERBACH, poi'er-bȧG, PURBACH, or PEURBACH, Georg von (1423-61). An Austrian mathematician and astronomer, born at Peurbach, near Linz. He studied in Vienna, and afterwards traveled in Germany, France, and Italy, where he delivered astronomical lectures at Ferrara, Bologna, and Padua. In 1454 he was astronomer to King Ladislas of Hungary, and somewhat later professor at the University of Vienna, and with Regiomontanus one of the leaders in mathematical thought in his century. Peuerbach compiled a table of sines, taking 60·10⁴ for unity or the length of the radius, and thus prepared the way for decimal fractions. The table was completed after his death by his pupil Regiomontanus. Peuerbach also calculated new tables of the planets, and gave a new list of the fixed stars. He wrote: Tractatus Super Propositiones Ptolemæi de Sinibus et Chordis (1541); Theoricæ Novæ Planetarum (1542); Sex Priores Libri Systematis Almagesti (1496, 1550); Institutiones in Arithmeticam (1511); Tabulæ Ecclipsium (1514). With Regiomontanus he wrote an Epitome in Cl. Ptolemai Magnum Compositionem (1543). Consult: Schubert, Peuerbach und Regiomontanus (Erlangen, 1828); Fiedler, Peuerbach und Regiomontanus, eine biographische Skizze (Leobschütz, 1870).