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Chapter 6
“Tahiti and Vardø will be the two columns […]”:
Observing Venus and Debating the Parallax
A precise definition of the Sun’s parallax, that is, a definition beyond any
doubt, associated with all certitude or at least the highest degree of prob-
ability, would not have been possible if it were not for the Supreme King
CHRISTIAN the SEVENTH, who followed the advice of Denmark’s wis-
est ministers and entered among the participants in this extremely im-
portant enterprise. To the surprise of all other academies, His Highness
donated the greatest possible sums for the attainment of this goal and
thereby ended up placing what we might call the crown on the head of all
the glorious, ruler-sponsored expeditions treated so far.
maximilian hell, introduction to “Expeditio litteraria ad Polum arcticum” (un-
finished manuscript, c.1773, wus, Manuscripte Hell)
∵
With the third volume of the Expeditio litteraria ad Polum arcticum, both Hell
and Sajnovics should be on solid ground. Their professional formation as as-
tronomers and “mathematicians” in the eighteenth-century sense of the word
could hardly be contested. Nor is it surprising that, despite the book as such
never materializing, the “mathematical-astronomical” part resulted in more
pages in print than even the Demonstratio and the polemics entailed. In brief,
the third volume was to consist of the following works:
Volume 3. Mathematicus, & astronomicus
Part 1: The latitude and longitude of Vardø, description of the observa-
tory and instruments used in Vardø during 1768–69, the refraction of the
atmosphere in the Far North, the observation of the transit of Venus it-
self, and an accurate determination of the solar parallax; Part 2: Geo-
graphical latitudes determined en route between Copenhagen and Vardø;
Part 3: Observations pertaining to the declination of the magnetic needle;
Part 4: A new method to determine the figure of the earth, by means of
barometric observations.
Maximilian Hell (1720–92)
And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe
- Titel
- Maximilian Hell (1720–92)
- Untertitel
- And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe
- Autoren
- Per Pippin Aspaas
- László Kontler
- Verlag
- Brill
- Ort
- Leiden
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-90-04-41683-3
- Abmessungen
- 15.5 x 24.1 cm
- Seiten
- 492
- Kategorien
- Naturwissenschaften Physik
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- Acknowledgments VII
- List of Illustrations IX
- Bibliographic Abbreviations X
- Introduction 1
- 1 Shafts and Stars, Crafts and Sciences: The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces 37
- 2 Metropolitan Lures: Enlightened and Jesuit Networks, and a New Node of Science 91
- 3 A New Node of Science in Action: The 1761 Transit of Venus and Hell’s Transition to Fame 134
- 4 The North Beckons: “A desperate voyage by desperate persons” 172
- 5 He Came, He Saw, He Conquered? The Expeditio litteraria ad Polum Arcticum 209
- 6 “Tahiti and Vardø will be the two columns […]”: Observing Venus andDebating the Parallax 258
- 7 Disruption of Old Structures 305
- 8 Coping with Enlightenments 344
- Appendix 1 Map of the Austrian Province of the Society of Jesus (with Glossary of Geographic Names) 394
- Appendix 2 Instruction for the Imperial and Royal Astronomer Maximilian Hell, S.J 398
- Bibliography 400
- Index 459